2019/12/25 - We Don't Need No Stinking Badger

[GameCobra]

[ We Don't Need No Stinking Badger ]


2. Fox is gonna have sexy scars next time we see him, just sayin'.

Fox looks like Legosi now. (from Beaststars)

I'd peg him more of a Star Wolf.

Wait a minute.
Star Fox.
Fox gets a scar.
He's now Wolf.
Fox.
Wolf.
Fox.
Logic.
... Merry Christmas. *walks away from the forums for the day*

EDIT: *comes back* Patch is on the other eye. Crisis averted. This is getting too meta now. x3

[dr_eirik]

Something that hasn't really been spoken of: Breels reaction to Marion. I'm sure that his instinct was to protect Keene from Marions verbal assault, but I'm not sure he comes off that great here. Breel seems a bit less understanding about where Marion was speaking from. It's an interesting sign of how much Keene has changed that he is the one who does understand.

Also, Keene is perhaps the most powerful ferret in the world. Why does it seem that him getting others to donate to the ECP would be possible, or even government grants. All he'd really need is a couple politicians in the right place and he can protect the family fortune. Or he's going to liquidate the estate and plow it all into the ECP.

[CuriousCnidarian]

{about the superfluous TG bit} That said, this isn't the direction Rick took, so instead we're just left with this oddity that serves only as a minor distraction that never really caused significant problems. It's just . . . there for no apparent reason.

I only started reading the comic at the tail end of this arc, and I only caught up to it shortly before the Christmas page was posted, so I didn't experience any of the pacing issues. But something still didn't sit right with me about this arc, and I think you nailed my feelings on the head here. The whole bit felt really unnecessary, and I can't tell if it's gonna 1. just act as something to set up minor unimportant jokes in the future, kinda like it was in this arc, or 2. it's going to be brought up in more of a major way in the future.

As an aside, this is looking like these tfs are gonna be permanent. I'd love to see some kind of TF that ultimately ended up being temporary, or a more important/prominent human character that, you know, stays human. Maybe if the curse on that treasure ever gets lifted, everyone affected by it changes back to normal. Whether they like it or not, just like how they were initially affected.

The thing to remember is that this is not likely the end of their story, not even close. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, both big and small, that linger.

The TG stuff seems tacked on now, but might take a whole new importance later. Perhaps we find out later that the coin doesn't do TG, so it becomes what changed them. Or perhaps the change becomes important for some other reason, like a native squirrel relentless pursues Marion, or Lois turns out to be a rare, endangered species bobcat.

Or maybe it was a random idea from Rick and it will never come up in any serious capacity again. Given how long it took to close out Kings arc, it might be years before we get some resolution. I'll wait.

yeah, you're pretty much restating the gist of what I was getting at. That is, either it's some one-off that's rarely if ever brought up again, or returns in a major way.
And I know this ain't the end of their story, on the contrary, I think we'll be seeing a lot of them in the coming chapters as they become part of the main cast. But remember, I literally just binged through the entire comic over the course of a few days, so to me, King's story got resolution pretty immediately. I may go insane if I have to wait years for a resolution to this one; I've always found waiting years for a resolution to a plotline in a webcomic much more frustrating than waiting for a resolution in a novel series. Probably has to do with the slow-drip, one-page-every-few-days nature of webcomics as opposed to the one-per-year nature of this other series, but I get an entire novel all at once (but I digress, probably).

[Obbl]

For making a big deal about how CinemaSins picks nits, your post comes across as really nit-picky to me personally.
And I think the crux of it comes to this point that you yourself made:

I haven't gone back and reread the arc in detail yet, so maybe when I do, I'd have more to say, but that all leads me to one fundamental problem.
When I go back and reread the arc, I won't be consuming it the same way I did the first time.

Rick is always writing this comic for 2 audiences: the one reading each strip as it comes out, and the one who will read it later. While we are waiting for each strip to come out, the time between each strip is long and we feel like any moment not directly advancing the plot is dragging things out. Contrarily, a person reading this all in one go needs to have their interest curve shaped properly to get a good experience from reading, and that includes things like repetition to build tension (such as your point in Chapter 4 with the number of times Marion's TF is reinforced) and taking a quick break from the action to let the audience breathe a moment. Rick can't write a perfectly satisfying story for both of these audiences, and I be willing to bet he prioritizes the latter (for good reason methinks). But that's why every point you made about pacing feels like a nit-pick to me (and why I get a little frustrated at people complaining about "all the breaks for comedy" that Rick takes). The pacing is likely pretty good when read straight through, and that's the whole point.

The only other complaint you really had was that the gender swapping was distracting, and that's a personal point, probably. Though again, as you mentioned with how much everyone busted their brains over whether Craig and Draig were gonna play a role, this one kinda just depends on how much you paid attention to it. Like it's a magic randomizing transforming coin. Why shouldn't it also change people's sex? And it does inform the plot, because it enhances Marion's discomfort and his feelings of inadequacy, and also because it contrasts with Lois's reaction which serves to flesh out their character dynamics in a much deeper way than just the species change.

So overall, this whole critique misses a lot of what is fun in this arc for me. Which isn't to say that you can't disagree, just that I question your placing the amount of weight on them that you seemed to. Though maybe that's just because you didn't balance with positive points. At the very least, thanks for waiting until the end to really criticize (you only mentioned the pacing a couple of times before, but you were definitely willing to give the arc it's time).

Something that hasn't really been spoken of: Breels reaction to Marion. I'm sure that his instinct was to protect Keene from Marions verbal assault, but I'm not sure he comes off that great here. Breel seems a bit less understanding about where Marion was speaking from. It's an interesting sign of how much Keene has changed that he is the one who does understand.

Hm? *head tilt* Marion's lashing out in anger, but it's mostly misdirected when he lashes out at Keene. Keene couldn't have known this was going to happen. Marion just wants someone to blame, but rather than just blaming the whims of Steward, he's trying to blame someone for not stopping it from happening, even though that individual had no way of knowing.

[dr_eirik]

Something that hasn't really been spoken of: Breels reaction to Marion. I'm sure that his instinct was to protect Keene from Marions verbal assault, but I'm not sure he comes off that great here. Breel seems a bit less understanding about where Marion was speaking from. It's an interesting sign of how much Keene has changed that he is the one who does understand.

Hm? *head tilt* Marion's lashing out in anger, but it's mostly misdirected when he lashes out at Keene. Keene couldn't have known this was going to happen. Marion just wants someone to blame, but rather than just blaming the whims of Steward, he's trying to blame someone for not stopping it from happening, even though that individual had no way of knowing.

I'm not sure that the anger in that moment is all that misdirected, and that's even without Marion knowing the whole story. This did all start because Keene started messing with powers he didn't understand, even after being warned by both Sabrina and Tarot. He almost allowed an evil entity into the world (and did let the dino-demon in) From what we know, you can draw a pretty direct line from his actions to a random, uninvolved teenager, and shortly after his girlfriend, having their lives completely derailed.

For that matter, Keene was the one who decided to hide the whole concept of a curse on the coins from Steward who then couldn't warn Thomas. Would either have heeded the warning? Likely no, but the fact remains that Keene didn't know it was going to turn anyone who touched it into an animal. He didn't know what the curse would do. He had no way of knowing if the curse would stay with Thomas and Steward or if it would spread.

So, I don't think you can just sat that Steward did it. Keene bears a lot of responsibility here. Heck, he knew Steward was doing something nefarious. If he couldn't fire him, he could have gone to the court with the recordings and had him replaced. That might have closed off that avenue to Thomas and perhaps the cursed coins never see the light of day, since the temple would still have collapsed when the mana was drained.

So, Breel chiding Marion in the moment about his anger, right after finding out that the whole thing boiled down to money and perhaps having had hope that the physical coin might be able to help turn him back, feels just slightly harsh.

[Nobody]

For making a big deal about how CinemaSins picks nits, your post comes across as really nit-picky to me personally.
And I think the crux of it comes to this point that you yourself made:

I haven't gone back and reread the arc in detail yet, so maybe when I do, I'd have more to say, but that all leads me to one fundamental problem.
When I go back and reread the arc, I won't be consuming it the same way I did the first time.

Rick is always writing this comic for 2 audiences: the one reading each strip as it comes out, and the one who will read it later. While we are waiting for each strip to come out, the time between each strip is long and we feel like any moment not directly advancing the plot is dragging things out. Contrarily, a person reading this all in one go needs to have their interest curve shaped properly to get a good experience from reading, and that includes things like repetition to build tension (such as your point in Chapter 4 with the number of times Marion's TF is reinforced) and taking a quick break from the action to let the audience breathe a moment. Rick can't write a perfectly satisfying story for both of these audiences, and I be willing to bet he prioritizes the latter (for good reason methinks). But that's why every point you made about pacing feels like a nit-pick to me (and why I get a little frustrated at people complaining about "all the breaks for comedy" that Rick takes). The pacing is likely pretty good when read straight through, and that's the whole point.

The only other complaint you really had was that the gender swapping was distracting, and that's a personal point, probably. Though again, as you mentioned with how much everyone busted their brains over whether Craig and Draig were gonna play a role, this one kinda just depends on how much you paid attention to it. Like it's a magic randomizing transforming coin. Why shouldn't it also change people's sex? And it does inform the plot, because it enhances Marion's discomfort and his feelings of inadequacy, and also because it contrasts with Lois's reaction which serves to flesh out their character dynamics in a much deeper way than just the species change.

So overall, this whole critique misses a lot of what is fun in this arc for me. Which isn't to say that you can't disagree, just that I question your placing the amount of weight on them that you seemed to. Though maybe that's just because you didn't balance with positive points. At the very least, thanks for waiting until the end to really criticize (you only mentioned the pacing a couple of times before, but you were definitely willing to give the arc it's time).

Have you watched a CinemaSins video? Half of their complaints come down to them not paying attention as they watch the movie. The other half are them not having a basic grasp of story structure. I'm not trying to point out how you can see the string in a Jim Henson Movie this one time, or how we didn't see Ripley and Parker watch Brett get dragged into the air shaft by the alien and therefore them talking about it means the film has a flaw. You want to hear a nitpick for this arc? Fox's wounds should be bleeding way more than they are in this page.

My post is a structural analysis. This is as opposed to a thematic analysis, where I might discuss what the story was trying to say, what it was all for. This is what the bulk of literature criticism takes the form of, which is indeed quite valuable. But I think that there needs to be more structural analysis of works because hoo boy is media getting super sloppy with story structure. Of all the movies released in the past five years, I have seen exactly three that didn't have serious structural problems weighing it down.
Pacing is not a nitpick, it is vital to a story's structure. The pacing felt off to me - and I'm pretty sure a few people agree with me on that point. So, I'm putting my full thoughts out now that I have a complete story to get a reaction from. It's a breakdown of the arc as I could remember it with the intent to look at what might be making the pace feel like it drags and where it might be improved. The pacing was never bad enough to kill engagement, as I stated, but it feels like it could have been improved. But the difficulty in analyzing it is because the story is very well constructed. It's incredibly difficult for me to put a finger on what specifically is the cause of this feeling of offness. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think the issue might not be pacing at all, but we just think it is, because we were all so desperate to find out how it ends that we blamed the offness on it. The pacing may actually just be a tangible detail we're latching onto. I don't know. That's why I just sort of wrote down everything I could think of: get it all on the table, open the floor to discussion and see if anyone else had insight.
There's a lot of "your mileage may vary" on how much flaws in a story get to you. Acknowledging said issues and analyzing them is how you better understand the way a story works and helps you better construct stories in the future. But there's always going to be flaws, at least superficial ones, because there are core elements of the story that have to be bent to to make the story work as a whole.
In this case, it really seems like a kind of zero sum game. Anything I point to that might be shaved off might have improved the pacing, but it would have come at the cost of losing something else. Whether or not the pacing issues are enough to justify losing what we would is where you make the hard calls as a writer. Nobody ever gets it perfect, because nobody ever can. As I believe I made perfectly clear, none of this is enough to really hurt the story and reading after the fact it will be even less of an issue. But in the moment, as it was being posted, multiple people were suggesting the story felt like it was dragging. While people may not know exactly why something feels off, when a bunch of people all suggest that something feels off, it's often a good implication that there is something off. That, I believe, makes it worth taking a look at to try and find what
If you don't think it's worth looking into because the problems are so minor and they are so heavily outweighed by the story's strengths, well, I can't really tell you that you're wrong. Because any flaws in the story are minor and they are heavily outweighed by the strengths. But I disagree that if a story is good, the only appropriate way to engage with it is to praise it and completely ignore its flaws.

Honestly, it may be after we all take time to really analyze it, the problems weren't in the story at all. It's entirely possible that the problems are imagined because we, the audience, were expecting something other than what was being given to us. Audience expectations colors reactions, which is why there are some very good movies and books that did terrible on initial release, but have grown to be very well received as time passed. This is why at one point I asked if this story should be approached as a mystery. It was coloring our expectations and that might be detrimental to our enjoyment. But we won't know until we've taken time to actually analyze it, discuss the issue, and reach a conclusion.

Now, if you want to hear me actually give unrelenting praise to the story, then when I've taken some time to reread the arc a couple of times, maybe I'll post a thematic analysis, because is that regard the story absolutely shines.

[Obbl]

I'm not at all asking for unrelenting praise (though I do love to hear it ). I suppose nitpicks was the wrong word, mea culpa. Rather the complaints do not feel well founded even if they were bothering you as you were reading. So many complaints have been leveled at this comic in the moment that most later readers seem to have absolutely no issue with, and I agree this is because we color our own experience. I have a high tolerance for these long form arcs, but others seem anxious to get to the end. I get tired of endless complaints about pacing when it's not something that Rick can help other than to never ever tell a story that runs as long as this one (or at least, no one has ever been able to suggest a viable alternative to my knowledge). I suppose the length would be one form of valid complaint, but it also feels a little entitled. Rick is telling stories that he wants to tell, and whether or not you are a fan of the length is kinda inconsequential. So, I struggle when people want to make a big deal of "pacing issues" in this comic. Rick actually usually writes stories that read at a pretty breakneck pace. His comics make good use of visual storytelling to slow that pace down a bit.
Maybe this is what I want to say: I get that everyone is excited to see the resolution, and I love when people talk about how excited they are. But even if the story's pacing is narratively fine, the desire to see the resolution can become a frustration about the lack of closure. It's fine to feel frustrated, but if it's really a patience issue and not a narrative one, complaining is just dragging everyone else into your personal problem. It's valid to feel like the story is moving slowly, but it's not valid to call it a structural issue if it actually isn't.

[Silly Zealot]

That's a lame villanous plan and lame transformation motivation, Steward, but sure, whatever works for you, you pint-sized psycho.

1. Marion using a smartwatch in place of a phone is adorable and clever. (Marion riding in Lois's hood is even more adorable.)

2. Fox is gonna have sexy scars next time we see him, just sayin'.

3. The lore fanatics will be pleased to learn who Devo's owner is.

4. Merry Christmas; take care of yourselves and each other (or else)!

1) Oh, so THAT'S what that was!

2) Yup. Fox is one of the most "character-developed" character of them all. One painful change at a time.

3) Wooooot! ........I forgot he existed, but nice to have him back!

4) Awww, I hoped you had a nice one, too!

I wonder if Cody knows?

Cory don't know, cuz Cory in the big house.

[Legotron123]

So, anyone wanna start guessing what Steward’s REAL plan is? Because “make Keene go bankrupt by turning a bunch of humans into animals that he’ll be compelled to help” has holes in it large enough to drive a train through. It’s more likely that plan is just a cover story to distract Keene, which would explain why Marion didn’t mention any more humans being turned into animals in the six month time skip. Plus, I doubt he’d be able to convince Trinket (and likely Corey by extension) to work for him if this was just a simple revenge plot. Those two are very self centered, so it’s unlikely they’d be willing to help him if there wasn’t something in it for them.

[Silly Zealot]

I do not know when this story will resume, so I cannot even begin to guess the answer to that question yet, Legotron (by the way, love the name!).

All I know is that it will be months before we see these two again, so we will have to find ourselves something else to do until then.


Um.....

.....Ponder on Fox's new scars, maybe? Who wants to bet he gets called ScarFox next time he shows up in the strip?

"Bino, let me enter the house."

"I can't let you do that ScarFox."

*Bino gets FACE'd again*

[Gbr23]

Fox is going to have a great Bond villain vibe, just saying

[tomindex]

Being yourself, accepting your faults, a change for the better. They're more human then they were. lord with merry christmas

[Ash Greytree]

Speaking of feelings of inadequacy, it always makes me feel dumb when others catch onto concepts and themes and character traits that I didn’t catch. I saw that he was almost always reacting to events and all that, but never even once thought about that played into it being brought up multiple times that Marion has feelings of inadequacy and what that means for him and Lois.

I’m always more focused on theorizing about what could happen next or just enjoying the character interactions. Early on I was focused on theorizing how Marion could get out of his predicament the fastest way possible. My “I want Marion to be safe and get the help he needs right now” theorizing was, now that I think about it, me projecting my own experiences and struggles onto him.

Back in Spring 2018 I was being given the run-around trying to figure out how to switch majors and transfer over to pursue my new degree after I realized my old one wouldn’t work out. It was a very irritating two weeks of dead ends, disappointments, and errors on both my and others’ parts. My wanting Marion to not have to deal with misunderstandings and foibles was me not wanting him to have to deal with the crud I went through the year prior.

Later on, I switched away from “What could happen next to solve Marion’s problem here and now?” theorizing and instead went with “What could happen next to produce interesting character interactions and status quos?”. I came up with ideas like:

-Marion living at the Treehouse and earning his keep, becoming friends with the folks there to give them some development and screen time too and Marion eventually finding a confidant, a Fox to his King so to speak.
-Steward actually not being the villain, but rather a red herring or an unintentional antagonist who tried using magic on the coin and remotely transformed Marion on accident.
-Lois taking Marion home and is finding out that Lois is Tarot’s owner, and she’s the one who tells them all about magic and things.
-Keene wanting to make a “Mile In Our Paws” program where, when he lets humans temporarily transform into animals to gain empathy for them and want to contribute to the ECP cause.
-Marion being required to go to ECP meetings as a stipulation of him joining, and serving as a coach to feral prey animals who’ve also enrolled in the program.
-The squirrel that called him a narc joins the ECP. They and Marion make amends and become friends.
-Lois & Marion move into the boarding house that King mentioned and the ECP funds their college tuition to take classes online in exchange for the pair serving as mentors for ferals (and now, as of this latest page’s reveal, any potential humans-turned-animals).

Now, I did manage to catch one theme that was really interesting to me: Kitsune seemed to be hammering home the idea that being born human isn’t anything truly special in the Housepets universe. It “just sorta happened”. Dwelling on your humanity (or former humanity) as special and essential to your being isn’t healthy. I get the feeling that this is a pet peeve of Kitsune’s when dealing with humans over the years. Kitsune tells Marion that “It’s not gonna help with what you really need~” when he asks the Celestial to just tell him who cursed them. I took that to mean that just telling them would be no fun as well as that what they really need isn’t catching a villain to conveniently get back their humanity, but rather to find a new path ahead in life and learn lessons from it.

Gonna combine the character traits and themes that Nobody brought up with the theme I found from Kitsune’s words into my hopes for what’ll be happening with Marion & Lois that’d lead to some neat character interactions and plots: The duo stay at the new ECP boarding house and get their tuition for online classes paid in return for teaching the new ferals there, both prey and pred, the ins and outs of human society (or as much of human society as teenagers can reasonably dispense wisdom on). Marion’s feelings of inadequacy, that he can’t control anything and always has to be reacting to something, slowly dissipate as he finds the kind of structure he needs serving as mentor and friend to different prey animals of his stature and maybe even his same species, including the “Narc!” Squirrel.

[waffliesinyoface]

I was planning on making an account here eventually anyways, so I felt I might as well do it now just so I can say, yes, squirrels are adorable, especially when riding around in hoodies. :3

[VeryAngryDeer]

Now, I did manage to catch one theme that was really interesting to me: Kitsune seemed to be hammering home the idea that being born human isn’t anything truly special in the Housepets universe. It “just sorta happened”. Dwelling on your humanity (or former humanity) as special and essential to your being isn’t healthy. I get the feeling that this is a pet peeve of Kitsune’s when dealing with humans over the years. Kitsune tells Marion that “It’s not gonna help with what you really need~” when he asks the Celestial to just tell him who cursed them. I took that to mean that just telling them would be no fun as well as that what they really need isn’t catching a villain to conveniently get back their humanity, but rather to find a new path ahead in life and learn lessons from it.

I'm not normally one to talk about "privilege", but I'm thinking Kitsune's position could only really be held by a being that is functionally omnipotent and can change its form at will. He has no idea what its like to live your entire life in one form, with no way of controlling it. He can't empathise with that, and when asked to, just says that something else is more important.

The only reason I can see why any of this doesn't seem a lot worse is that as the audience, we know that Heaven exists, and people who are killed or maimed or suffer in any of a variety of ways will get to live an eternal, happy and satisfying life afterwards. Take Marion being turned into a squirrel. His life expectancy got cut in half, if not more. If there was no heaven, this would be an absolutely terrible thing to do to someone, but since there's an afterlife, it barely matters.

[Macsen]

Here's a pretty good question: Where are Lois and Marion living now? Clearly, they are already well-adjusted to the human world, being former humans themselves. They don't necessarily have to be in the program, especially if they are on good terms at least with Lois's parents.

[GameCobra]

Pretty sure they are living with their parents still. Just that they know what happened now.

[dr_eirik]

Here's a pretty good question: Where are Lois and Marion living now? Clearly, they are already well-adjusted to the human world, being former humans themselves. They don't necessarily have to be in the program, especially if they are on good terms at least with Lois's parents.

There are a couple possibilities there. The final panels makes it seem like they are living together, unless Lois is just walking Marion home. I tend to think they have their own place together. Marion's joke about chewing off her face while she slept implied that. In my mind, they are either in some college living situation (dorm, off campus apartment) or the ECP boarding house King mentioned.

[GameCobra]

Also - Am I the only one that's realizing that Fox and Maxwell now have stories to tell? Fox has the eye scar and Maxwell has the bitten ear.

[Nobody]

I'm not at all asking for unrelenting praise (though I do love to hear it ). I suppose nitpicks was the wrong word, mea culpa. Rather the complaints do not feel well founded even if they were bothering you as you were reading. So many complaints have been leveled at this comic in the moment that most later readers seem to have absolutely no issue with, and I agree this is because we color our own experience. I have a high tolerance for these long form arcs, but others seem anxious to get to the end. I get tired of endless complaints about pacing when it's not something that Rick can help other than to never ever tell a story that runs as long as this one (or at least, no one has ever been able to suggest a viable alternative to my knowledge). I suppose the length would be one form of valid complaint, but it also feels a little entitled. Rick is telling stories that he wants to tell, and whether or not you are a fan of the length is kinda inconsequential. So, I struggle when people want to make a big deal of "pacing issues" in this comic. Rick actually usually writes stories that read at a pretty breakneck pace. His comics make good use of visual storytelling to slow that pace down a bit.
Maybe this is what I want to say: I get that everyone is excited to see the resolution, and I love when people talk about how excited they are. But even if the story's pacing is narratively fine, the desire to see the resolution can become a frustration about the lack of closure. It's fine to feel frustrated, but if it's really a patience issue and not a narrative one, complaining is just dragging everyone else into your personal problem. It's valid to feel like the story is moving slowly, but it's not valid to call it a structural issue if it actually isn't.

Well, yes, you can argue they don't feel well-founded. That's the point of discussion, to get a wide range of perspectives on the question. And again, it is very well constructed. Still, Even with stories that I very much enjoy, I often take time to consider, "Could it have been improved?" And that's what I'm aiming at here. A lot of us think the pacing was off, but let's sit down and look at that. I outlined the moments that I think might be responsible for that, so the question is, how could those moments be handled differently? Would handling those moments differently actually improve it?
I think a large part of it might have been that people were reading it as a mystery. Because they were looking at it as a mystery, they were looking for clues. If you approach the story looking for clues, then yes, there were incredibly long stretches of time between clues. But me, I wasn't looking for clues. The moment I saw Steward's evil silhouette, I marked him as the one behind it. There were no clues, because there was no mystery. As I said way back in . . . I don't actually remember when, early chapter 4 I think, this played out more like a character study. In that case, what we should really have been looking for were the pieces of information that told us who Marion was as a character.
But even I felt a bit of a drag. The only thing I can lay my finger on are the filler strips between chapters, but as I said, those seem to be a necessary evil, given Rick was writing this as he went and probably needed time to work out the specifics. In that case, yes, that's just something we gotta be patient about, because it's a small price to pay for making sure the actual story is well done.

And then there's the other thing I don't know: would I have felt a drag if I wasn't on the forums discussing it with other people? The discussion was a part of how I was absorbing the story, and the input of opinions influences perception. Despite pointing out that the story seemed to be playing out like a character study, everybody's questions still put my mind constantly on the reveal of why Steward was doing everything (I still consider the how unimportant and "Trinket helped him do it" is enough for me). Was that all it was? It's a distinct possibility. If, even at a level bellow the conscious reading, the focus is on that reveal as the one most important thing, then yes, it took forever to get to that point.
Additionally, I'm a stickler for pacing. It's possible I can get myself into a perspective of giving it more weight and emphasis than the situation demands. A perceived pacing issue, real or imagined, is going to absorb an inordinate amount of my attention, and could very easily create a feedback loop that amplifies the effect of perceived issues. That particular problem won't go away until there's some distance in time away from the story - enough to allow a fresh perspective on it. And as I said, I'm fairly new to webcomics that try to tell long stories, so I don't feel like I fully understand how to best pace it. This only increases the amount of attention I'm paying to it. The potential to blow it all completely out of proportion is very high.

If that's the case, then again, a discussion has value because analyzing the structure and eliminating pacing as the problem leaves us with a need to consider that. And it reinforces why understanding story structure and genre conventions matters. It's very easy to trick yourself into reading a story in a way that it's not meant to be read.

So, you say there's nothing wrong with the pace and it was all in our heads? Okay, you've established your argument. So, support your case. Take a few points out of my original post and say why you don't think those moments were important. Tell me why you think cutting them to speed up the pacing would be detrimental. Maybe your perspective will be proven self-evident. Then again, maybe you'll find that it could have improved the story. It's purely academic, because the story is already great and improving on it isn't really necessary, but trying does help you better understand how stories work. I mean, what's to be learned from dissecting the structure of Birdemic? Or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? The problems are apparent. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of story structure can pick out what's wrong with those kinds of stories. Suggesting improvements to them isn't academically stimulating, because it basically just comes down to rewriting the entire story. But taking a story that's this good and trying to improve it? To do that, you have to REALLY know what you're doing. And you also have to know how to be self-aware of your own perspective, because it requires you to work out when there's an actual point to be improved and when you're just seeing a problem because you're looking for a problem.

I guess, in that sense, calling it a problem might be putting people in the wrong mind. But to call it a "moment that works well, but maybe possibly could be improved" is a mouthful to say, so calling it a "flaw" is just a shortcut. But I don't know what else to call it. Every word that accurately reflects my intent implies that there's something wrong with the moment. That's not really the case, but our language doesn't have any single term to express the concept of something that's not a problem, but nevertheless is something to be examined to search for improvements. This is largely because our language is heavily built around opposition: it's great for discussing in terms of extremes like right or wrong, but it's hard to discuss the difference between right and more right without implying that there's something wrong.

I try to do my best to convey that I don't mean to say that it's bad, or that we should be expecting better, but it's hard not to imply that when you're asking the question of whether or not it could be improved. Our language is just kinda built that way.

So, anyone wanna start guessing what Steward’s REAL plan is? Because “make Keene go bankrupt by turning a bunch of humans into animals that he’ll be compelled to help” has holes in it large enough to drive a train through. It’s more likely that plan is just a cover story to distract Keene, which would explain why Marion didn’t mention any more humans being turned into animals in the six month time skip. Plus, I doubt he’d be able to convince Trinket (and likely Corey by extension) to work for him if this was just a simple revenge plot. Those two are very self centered, so it’s unlikely they’d be willing to help him if there wasn’t something in it for them.

Okay, gonna have to stop you there, because the holes in Steward's plan really are irrelevant. Logically it doesn't make sense, but people aren't logical. Stew has been stewing on his bitterness for . . . how long has it been since TC2? At least a year in comic. Maybe more. He has the coin as his only tool of revenge. When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and when you've got a magic coin that turns people into animals, every person looks like a transformation waiting to happen. Or maybe that's just me. >.>
Steward is acting irrationally because he's thinking irrationally, so his plan having holes in it doesn't mean he must have a better one in the works. It could just mean that he's not thinking clearly because his emotions are coloring his ability to accurately judge the best course of action.

Now, I did manage to catch one theme that was really interesting to me: Kitsune seemed to be hammering home the idea that being born human isn’t anything truly special in the Housepets universe. It “just sorta happened”. Dwelling on your humanity (or former humanity) as special and essential to your being isn’t healthy. I get the feeling that this is a pet peeve of Kitsune’s when dealing with humans over the years. Kitsune tells Marion that “It’s not gonna help with what you really need~” when he asks the Celestial to just tell him who cursed them. I took that to mean that just telling them would be no fun as well as that what they really need isn’t catching a villain to conveniently get back their humanity, but rather to find a new path ahead in life and learn lessons from it.

The theme of "what does it mean to be a person?" That opens up all kinds of interesting places for a story to go.

[Silly Zealot]

Like it's a magic randomizing transforming coin. Why shouldn't it also change people's sex?

I agree with the part where you point out it fkeshes out their personalities, but it's kind of like that one joke I made about Marion being a jedi (long story):

-"Marion is not a jedi."

Me: "Where does it say he isn't? "

The coins where curse to turn people into animals as a funny way to comply to the "no humans hands may touch them" condition.
Sure, it doesn't say they can't change your gender too, but nothing tells us they can, either.

Then again, we still don't know how Lois got turned into a bobcat remotely, so maybe it will get explained next year?

For making a big deal about how CinemaSins picks nits, your post comes across as really nit-picky to me personally.

Have you watched a CinemaSins video? Half of their complaints come down to them not paying attention as they watch the movie. The other half are them not having a basic grasp of story structure.

I am going to forgive both of your blasphemous calumniations of CinemaSins because both your comments have 0 seconds of logos preceding them.

[NHWestoN]

Great strip, first and foremost.

But my heart sank here. Unlike a chunk of the fan base, forced TF stories where we see actual consequences are not a favorite. Howl, even Kings story brought me down. And we know that things are going to potentially get so much worse.
At least Marion and Lois' relationship seems to have gotten stronger.

Well, it was a bit long but, hey, so was the Illiad..... As is often the case, when one of Rick's sagas ends, I find a good reread gives me a new and deeper appreciation for his craft, his art, and his humanity. Yeah, there are loose ends and questions but - as Mom used to say - "That's why God invented "next time." Rick'll resolve some and create others. That, among other reasons, is why I read the comic.

Holiday greetings from LosAngeles, D-Rock and all you other good folks. Rejoice and Enjoy!

[FireworkFox]

Then again, we still don't know how Lois got turned into a bobcat remotely, so maybe it will get explained next year?

Two words: coin sniping.

Anyways, Marion x Lois is now my favorite ship of all time!

Also, poor fox! That must've hurt!

And we haven't seen Peanut in waaaaay too long! How can you do this, Rick? I just wanna see my favorite good boy!

[fenrirblack]

{about the superfluous TG bit} That said, this isn't the direction Rick took, so instead we're just left with this oddity that serves only as a minor distraction that never really caused significant problems. It's just . . . there for no apparent reason.

I only started reading the comic at the tail end of this arc, and I only caught up to it shortly before the Christmas page was posted, so I didn't experience any of the pacing issues. But something still didn't sit right with me about this arc, and I think you nailed my feelings on the head here. The whole bit felt really unnecessary, and I can't tell if it's gonna 1. just act as something to set up minor unimportant jokes in the future, kinda like it was in this arc, or 2. it's going to be brought up in more of a major way in the future.

As an aside, this is looking like these tfs are gonna be permanent. I'd love to see some kind of TF that ultimately ended up being temporary, or a more important/prominent human character that, you know, stays human. Maybe if the curse on that treasure ever gets lifted, everyone affected by it changes back to normal. Whether they like it or not, just like how they were initially affected.

The thing to remember is that this is not likely the end of their story, not even close. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, both big and small, that linger.

The TG stuff seems tacked on now, but might take a whole new importance later. Perhaps we find out later that the coin doesn't do TG, so it becomes what changed them. Or perhaps the change becomes important for some other reason, like a native squirrel relentless pursues Marion, or Lois turns out to be a rare, endangered species bobcat.

Or maybe it was a random idea from Rick and it will never come up in any serious capacity again. Given how long it took to close out Kings arc, it might be years before we get some resolution. I'll wait.

Going to have to go with random idea that will never be brought up again in any serious capacity. It never had a real point in the plot. It was wish fulfillment from the beginning. Rick tried something it didn't work and now it's stuck. I'll be surprised if it happens again and even if it does it will still probably not have a relevant point for the plot or the character's development.

But even I felt a bit of a drag. The only thing I can lay my finger on are the filler strips between chapters, but as I said, those seem to be a necessary evil, given Rick was writing this as he went and probably needed time to work out the specifics. In that case, yes, that's just something we gotta be patient about, because it's a small price to pay for making sure the actual story is well done.

And then there's the other thing I don't know: would I have felt a drag if I wasn't on the forums discussing it with other people? The discussion was a part of how I was absorbing the story, and the input of opinions influences perception. Despite pointing out that the story seemed to be playing out like a character study, everybody's questions still put my mind constantly on the reveal of why Steward was doing everything (I still consider the how unimportant and "Trinket helped him do it" is enough for me). Was that all it was? It's a distinct possibility. If, even at a level bellow the conscious reading, the focus is on that reveal as the one most important thing, then yes, it took forever to get to that point.
Additionally, I'm a stickler for pacing. It's possible I can get myself into a perspective of giving it more weight and emphasis than the situation demands. A perceived pacing issue, real or imagined, is going to absorb an inordinate amount of my attention, and could very easily create a feedback loop that amplifies the effect of perceived issues. That particular problem won't go away until there's some distance in time away from the story - enough to allow a fresh perspective on it. And as I said, I'm fairly new to webcomics that try to tell long stories, so I don't feel like I fully understand how to best pace it. This only increases the amount of attention I'm paying to it. The potential to blow it all completely out of proportion is very high.

So, you say there's nothing wrong with the pace and it was all in our heads? Okay, you've established your argument. So, support your case. Take a few points out of my original post and say why you don't think those moments were important. Tell me why you think cutting them to speed up the pacing would be detrimental. Maybe your perspective will be proven self-evident. Then again, maybe you'll find that it could have improved the story. It's purely academic, because the story is already great and improving on it isn't really necessary, but trying does help you better understand how stories work. I mean, what's to be learned from dissecting the structure of Birdemic? Or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? The problems are apparent. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of story structure can pick out what's wrong with those kinds of stories. Suggesting improvements to them isn't academically stimulating, because it basically just comes down to rewriting the entire story. But taking a story that's this good and trying to improve it? To do that, you have to REALLY know what you're doing. And you also have to know how to be self-aware of your own perspective, because it requires you to work out when there's an actual point to be improved and when you're just seeing a problem because you're looking for a problem.

I guess, in that sense, calling it a problem might be putting people in the wrong mind. But to call it a "moment that works well, but maybe possibly could be improved" is a mouthful to say, so calling it a "flaw" is just a shortcut. But I don't know what else to call it. Every word that accurately reflects my intent implies that there's something wrong with the moment. That's not really the case, but our language doesn't have any single term to express the concept of something that's not a problem, but nevertheless is something to be examined to search for improvements. This is largely because our language is heavily built around opposition: it's great for discussing in terms of extremes like right or wrong, but it's hard to discuss the difference between right and more right without implying that there's something wrong.

I try to do my best to convey that I don't mean to say that it's bad, or that we should be expecting better, but it's hard not to imply that when you're asking the question of whether or not it could be improved. Our language is just kinda built that way.

I have to agree with most of what you said in the original post. It was a lot but pointed out the main problems of the story. That said let me add my two cents. The pacing is complicated because there were scenes that were unnecessary but served to reinforce the genre of the series which is comedy and serve as "entertainment."
Let me explain that in a way that hopefully makes sense. My biggest issue was the cookie thing. It felt like an delay but it served a minor purpose which was to entertain the fans who love Breel and establish more of his character now that he is a main cast member. Keene being throttled was both funny and one could argue showed a skewed mindset for Keene for believing that now that Marion is an animal he should have an animal girlfriend (that was my interpretation) and hopefully that mindset will begin to change. Then there were scenes like Thomas being hit with a coconut. No one can say it made sense but it was funny in Looney Tunes type way and that is a real takeaway. It breaks up the seriousness of the story which is very heavy and depressing a lot of the time. That is something that you need to do in stories especially ones targeted at younger audiences. Talking animals only takes you so far so you have to make them laugh, cry, keep them interested. Even if it did slow the pacing down it served a purpose, not for the story but for the reader especially when you reread the entire thing all the way through in one sitting.
There are a few treehouse scenes that could be cut. I've said this before and I'll say it again we spent way too much time establishing this "I don't care" attitude from the ferals. While it showed that Steward was not going to convince any of them to join the ECP that could have been done in one scene. It's been long established that Jess does not give a carp. I still believe that while the school scene was the most important, the Zoo scene and talking to Thomas was partly wasteful even for comedic purposes. I'm glad we saw what happened to him but even him lying through his teeth was pointless as Marion did not believe him. That said, Marion did change his tune when he saw what happened to Lois but flipped again once after talking to Keene. We went in circles for nothing instead of just talking to Keene from the get go. Especially when Poncho already pointed out the treasure cursed Thomas. I will tack this on real quick. IF Thomas does have a significant role in the future with Steward's scheme then talking to him now would have a purpose and not be as wasteful as it appears now.

I think I had more to say but i got distracted and lost my train of thought. Anyway, pacing is the hardest part of writing. The story has flaws but I still stand by that despite the flaws (again one being that there was never a single clue or indication of how Steward go into Marion's room. An open or unlocked window maybe?) that its as still a good story overall that did have a good structure, characters, and flow despite the hiccups.

Also, and I say this to everyone, that this is only part 1 of many. So Marion, Lois, and the rest will continue to develop when we pick up with them again as well as the story and Steward's scheme. The question is will Rick take this down a darker path that delves into the consequences of random people turning into animals and that effect on the greater society. Or will it remained solely focused on a few characters in their own little bubble.

So, anyone wanna start guessing what Steward’s REAL plan is? Because “make Keene go bankrupt by turning a bunch of humans into animals that he’ll be compelled to help” has holes in it large enough to drive a train through. It’s more likely that plan is just a cover story to distract Keene, which would explain why Marion didn’t mention any more humans being turned into animals in the six month time skip. Plus, I doubt he’d be able to convince Trinket (and likely Corey by extension) to work for him if this was just a simple revenge plot. Those two are very self centered, so it’s unlikely they’d be willing to help him if there wasn’t something in it for them.

Okay, gonna have to stop you there, because the holes in Steward's plan really are irrelevant. Logically it doesn't make sense, but people aren't logical. Stew has been stewing on his bitterness for . . . how long has it been since TC2? At least a year in comic. Maybe more. He has the coin as his only tool of revenge. When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and when you've got a magic coin that turns people into animals, every person looks like a transformation waiting to happen. Or maybe that's just me. >.>
Steward is acting irrationally because he's thinking irrationally, so his plan having holes in it doesn't mean he must have a better one in the works. It could just mean that he's not thinking clearly because his emotions are coloring his ability to accurately judge the best course of action.

I've said this repeatedly and I'll say it again. If Steward wanted to destroy the Miltons then he needs to turn his scheme into a "thing." He needs to make Keene the face of this crisis and not in a good way. He needs to stir panic and pandemonium and throw Keene under the bus. Bad PR means investors turn away from the company and that at least cuts the cash flow. People sue for damages and what have you. If more humans do take advantage of the "pay for college" thing then that's trouble right there.

I will also say that Steward is not or has ever been a criminal mastermind. He was a lawyer or accountant (I'm still not sure what his job really was) in other words "normal" so we shouldn't be surprised that he's not planning an elaborate 3-Dimensional scheme with ten fail-safes. He went crazy and lost everything and it shows. The fact remains that he can, has, and will do a lot of damage to a lot people and that's the real takeaway.

[Elwood Blutarsky]

This stripe is very effectively done. The big reveal of Trinket and Steward's escape are both a cool cliffhanger mixed with the truly bittersweet ending for Marion and Lois, they don't change back and may never get the chance but at least they have each other. I love the art and the message in the last few panels. The Babylon Gardens street lined with Christmas lights is beautiful with some great perspective to it.

Marion's fate reminds me a little of the end of the novel version of Roald Dahl's "The Witches." Our hero gets changed into a mouse but unlike virtually every other "kid gets turned into an animal" book he never gets to change back. Indeed just like Marion he takes solace in a simple piece of cheese or a normal snack being huge by comparison now. At least in the end Marion faired better than Gregor Samsa.

Anyone else notice Steward lost his glasses when Fox tackled him? His last human item seemingly gone and immediately thereafter he slices Fox in an animal-like manner with his claws and reveals his true colors as a villain. Stew could still have redeemed himself, maybe even joined the ECP or even gotten restored one day, but the badger has jumped off the slippery slope now.

[fenrirblack]

Okay, first Good for Steward for actually being a full on super villain lunatic. Yay.

Second, seriously guys, that is the last time I let you make me question what is clearly obvious and that Steward was the villain all along.

Thirdly, no Lana. Disappointing.

Fourth, we never did get to know how he did it. Or how many there are. OR if and where are the others he may have changed.

You can never be too sure when it comes to this comic and questioning stuff is a health attitude. Besides, your third point really undercuts your second.

I still stand by that Lana could have a hand in this or would have been a better villain which I would have enjoyed hence that even though I was right about Steward, I would have preferred Lana being the bad guy or involved in some way.

Amazing strip and ending; I wonder where this will lead us in the future, but for the time being a little slide of life to take break will be equally as good

Although a Legosi eye-scar is cool and all; why on our poor Fox?! TwT

Nick Furry?

HA I made that same joke.

[SeanWolf]

*reads over all the replies to this thread* Well...I can easily say this whole series of arcs has been the most divisive I've think I've seen on this forums in a long time. So, let's get happy: I wonder what gifts Marion got for Christmas. Judging by his face on Panel 14 and the size of the box, I'm thinking he got a Nintendo Switch

[fenrirblack]

2. Fox is gonna have sexy scars next time we see him, just sayin'.

Fox looks like Legosi now. (from Beaststars)

On that subject, Gouhin has a good line that I feel is significant considering the events in the comic. "It's said that a change in your face's appearance shows that you're going through a turning point in your life." You can apply that to the comic in general now that it is going through a VERY significant turning point.

[GameCobra]

Can't really see Lana being a villain. x3

Something that dawned on me is that Stewart was expecting more people to be in the ECP by Christmas. Wonder if that's what Friday's comic will be about? Would laugh that he shows these random animals be revealed to be Jill, Earl, Bill, Jeff, etc.

[fenrirblack]

Can't really see Lana being a villain. x3

That's the beauty of it, you wouldn't see it coming. It's like Assistant Mayor Bellwether from Zootopia.

Let me jot down my reasoning again. She has access to the temple before and after it collapsed, not to mention Henry's research, she would have just as much to gain from turning humans into animals for the ECP as Keene, she has been keeping tabs on Marion since after he was transformed, she didn't sound surprised when Lois called and told her that she had become a bobcat, she was one of the only people who even knew they were at the Zoo because Poncho told her, she has a perfect villain backstory. After years of dealing with Keene and her siblings crap, she sought to take over the Milton's enterprises because she has always been the responsible one, the overworked and under appreciated one, the one everyone overlooks. She's smarter than the others, and the way she talked to Lois after her transformation was quite suspicious. Now she is going to just use Steward like a damp rag and when she's done toss him in the gutter. Housepets gets REAL.

[GameCobra]

Can't really see Lana being a villain. x3

That's the beauty of it, you wouldn't see it coming. It's like Assistant Mayor Bellwether from Zootopia.

Let me jot down my reasoning again. She has access to the temple before and after it collapsed, not to mention Henry's research, she would have just as much to gain from turning humans into animals for the ECP as Keene, she has been keeping tabs on Marion since after he was transformed, she didn't sound surprised when Lois called and told her that she had become a bobcat, she was one of the only people who even knew they were at the Zoo because Poncho told her, she has a perfect villain backstory. After years of dealing with Keene and her siblings crap, she sought to take over the Milton's enterprises because she has always been the responsible one, the overworked and under appreciated one, the one everyone overlooks. She's smarter than the others, and the way she talked to Lois after her transformation was quite suspicious. Now she is going to just use Steward like a damp rag and when she's done toss him in the gutter. Housepets gets REAL.

She comes off more like a trusted sister who just found out her brother has been doing naughty things behind her back.

Honestly, she would be more of a villain if Keene kept lying to her, but as far as we know, this is one of the first moments she caught him red handed.

[EliFloof]

I wonder what Steward's real plan is here- if Keene is super rich, room and board for several hundred (or even thousand) humans-turned-animals isn't going to make a dent in his fortune (assuming he's got it invested to earn passive income).

[Obbl]

So, you say there's nothing wrong with the pace and it was all in our heads? Okay, you've established your argument. So, support your case. Take a few points out of my original post and say why you don't think those moments were important.

As far as the pacing goes, I'm pretty sure you made an argument as to why every one of the moments you mentioned could be considered necessary to the story, so not sure what else I'd really need to add (and I did make my supporting point anyway, I just didn't address it moment by moment). And I've already made my case as to why the gender change was a compelling narrative choice for me. And the fillers are (as you mentioned) necessary to give Rick a break every so often.
I think the only other point you brought up was that the main characters got shunted to the side mostly, which yes is a an issue, but Rick has said that he wants to set up a long term arc that everyone can participate in (unlike King's long term arc where virtually no one could reasonably participate). This appears to be that arc, and if we assume so, that means having this establishing arc be one that few of the main cast could participate in was necessary for setting up the future events where Rick will be able to pull in all the main cast.

Any flaws with this arc are (to me) so incredibly small that I don't know what could be done to improve them without drastically changing the format of this comic. As Fen noted, there is an comedic entertainment aspect to each strip such that every update can be considered self contained even when it's part of a longer story. Rick could change this so that every strip smoothly keeps the plot going and no time is "wasted" on the joke, but I personally like the format as is, and Rick hasn't ever expressed doubts about his decision to make this the format. I'm also a fan of the long term arcs as much as the shorter slice of life arcs, and Rick enjoys making both.

So I don't see much need to support anything about my case. No matter how much I poke at it, it does feel a little self-evident. But it'll take some time before we'll be able to do a fresh read through and see how it holds up all in one go (or get more new viewers in to get their feedback). That'll be my deciding factor. If I don't find any pacing issues in a straight read-through, then the issues come down mostly to a lack of patience on the readers' part. That is my real argument.

As far as your point on the comments section influencing things, yes, I whole-heartedly agree. It was obvious from the beginning that Steward's coin was the likely culprit, and his final line at the tree house was the clear sign from the author that this was the correct interpretation. Yet the mystery took up the majority of the comments, and it was hard to talk about the character development from moment to moment. That made it hard to get the community involved in the discussion that mattered more to the comic as it was unfolding. And even now, we're sitting here discussing whether there were issues with pacing rather than why the gender change was compelling for characterization and themeing or how well Lois and Marion work together as characters or how Marion has grown or how we think they'll continue to grow in the future. These discussions keep trying to happen and then get buried in all this. Hooray I'm contributing to the mess

[CuriousCnidarian]

Hooray I'm contributing to the mess

Are all arc conclusion threads this divisive? This is like my second page discussion thread period, so as far as I know they're all like this. Small sample sizes!

*reads over all the replies to this thread* Well...I can easily say this whole series of arcs has been the most divisive I've think I've seen on this forums in a long time. So, let's get happy: I wonder what gifts Marion got for Christmas. Judging by his face on Panel 14 and the size of the box, I'm thinking he got a Nintendo Switch

How would one this size of a squirrel even effectively play a Switch?

[SeanWolf]

Hooray I'm contributing to the mess

Are all arc conclusion threads this divisive? This is like my second page discussion thread period, so as far as I know they're all like this. Small sample sizes!

*reads over all the replies to this thread* Well...I can easily say this whole series of arcs has been the most divisive I've think I've seen on this forums in a long time. So, let's get happy: I wonder what gifts Marion got for Christmas. Judging by his face on Panel 14 and the size of the box, I'm thinking he got a Nintendo Switch

How would one this size of a squirrel even effectively play a Switch?

The Joy-Cons can used separately and/or on their own.

[CuriousCnidarian]

The Joy-Cons can used separately and/or on their own.

I know that, I own a Switch. Even a single Joy-con is what, 40% Marion's body size, thereabouts? Even one would be a fair bit cumbersome.

[VeryAngryDeer]

The Joy-Cons can used separately and/or on their own.

I know that, I own a Switch. Even a single Joy-con is what, 40% Marion's body size, thereabouts? Even one would be a fair bit cumbersome.

I imagine if he sat in between them, he could act like a starship captain or something. It would be more like operating an arcade machine than a handheld games console, but I think it would work.

The controllers may be 40% his size, but the controls are only on about 50% of their surface, meaning he could position them where he'd best be able to reach.

[D-Rock]

Hooray I'm contributing to the mess

Are all arc conclusion threads this divisive? This is like my second page discussion thread period, so as far as I know they're all like this. Small sample sizes!

Well, things tend to range from "civilized" to "debate room" to "poorly kept debate room" and a small handful of times-

11b0e001-223e-449d-b6c8-54df25bafb95.gif (960.66 KiB) Viewed 14258 times

Thank all that is holy that those moments are exceedingly rare, but moderator and administrator intervention is not unknown.

[fenrirblack]

Hooray I'm contributing to the mess

Are all arc conclusion threads this divisive? This is like my second page discussion thread period, so as far as I know they're all like this. Small sample sizes!

Well, things tend to range from "civilized" to "debate room" to "poorly kept debate room" and a small handful of times-

In my mind it is like a book club. Sometimes I imagine it's more like we're all gathered at a round table in a gray room and yelling across to each other. The strip in up on a large monitor. Sometimes it's like that meme of the woman yelling at the cat.

[CuriousCnidarian]

Something that occurred to me a while ago but I hand't posted yet: I've seen some folks wonder about the large time skip and not seeing about how Marion and Lois come to accept their TFs; perhaps it's because they've been getting that therapy King mentioned?