The Gaming Den

Since we have a thread for Rocked You and Lost You but not Made you Furiously Angry, I had to start one.

For the very first time ever, I have experienced a gut-punch so horrible that it immediately made me want to do grievous physical violence to the webcomic's creator. I honestly don't know if that's a sign of excellence or terribleness, but right now I'm leaning towards the former.

I speak, of course, of the most recent page of Goblins.

http://www.goblinscomic.org/10222013/

It's been most of a week and I'd probably still be tempted to kick him if we ever met in person. Damn, that's harsh.

I don't follow this strip, can you explain what happened and why it's so infuriating?

Need some context for this. Obviously shit's gone bad, but I have no idea what is going on.

Long story short, the snake lady has PTSD related to the magical leash the guy just accidentally grabbed.

Here's the quick breakdown for non-readers.

The previous day's page had the yuan-ti chick forget that she loved the guy with the purple eye because that memory/event was effectively wiped from reality.

Today's has the guy with the purple eye being heart broken, not knowing what happened and grabbing the leash to her collar which is a use-activated Dominate Monster item upon the wearer of the collar that has previously been used to traumatize her in every possible horrible way. She has serious issues with people touching her, let alone using the collar on her.

So in a moment of desperation purple eye guy just did the worst possible thing to her by commanding her with that leash to her collar.

They're in a many-worlds PvP dungeon that you have to win, in game, because you forget every loss and start again. They've started again hundreds of thousands of times, out of game, but they've just won this one.

So she's the one-in-a-million of all the alternate world copies of her who have ever been able to trust a Human, because he's the one-in-a-million who wanted her to feel safe again and was able to show it. Their symbol of that got put in a literal memory hole, so she's leaving him, because such trust is impossible, even though she still feels it.

He just broke that trust in the worst way possible, the leash is why none of them can trust. The two share an ideal platonic love, and she's probably going to kill him if he lets go. It is quite a thorough tragedy.

Remind me again why they haven't taken the damn thing off of her?

Because it is a stupid comic written by stupid people about stupid people.

I'm really no sure how this is any different from any other stupid guy and girl are meant for each other, except the aren't, and then rape. And that shit happens all the time in bad stories, the only difference is this is more overtly fantasy, and the author is pretending that it is the logical consequence of things instead authorial fiat.

It's Goblins. One of the opening gags was a character losing an eye to a sharp stick. Shortly thereafter the village is destroyed.

Somewhat after that, someone got the word 'monster' carved into their forehead with a scalpel specifically designed to leave scars.

Eventual gut-wrenching tragedy is sort of the order of the day in Goblins.

TOZ wrote:Remind me again why they haven't taken the damn thing off of her?

It's a cursed item and they're all low level. None of them have access to the Remove Curse spell.

Lol. They have a sword made of awesome, and that collar is loose. Break it, then drop it down a memory hole so that none of the abuse will have ever happened. Bam, problem solved. Okay, granted, rl abuse survivors might complain about how easy she gets over it, but that's what you fucking get for trying to do grimdark in a world where magic solves everything.

hyzmarca wrote:

TOZ wrote:Remind me again why they haven't taken the damn thing off of her?

It's a cursed item and they're all low level. None of them have access to the Remove Curse spell.

And they have been told that it will create a big explosion if broken.

Now, they really should dangle the leash into an oblivion hole to at least get rid of that part since it doesn't break it, it just makes that part never have existed. I don't know what would happen, but I'd do that if it were my character.

The scary part about lowering something into an oblivion hole is that you don't remember doing it so I have no idea how you would know when to stop.

Back on topic: Perdido Street Station.

Twilight
Or more importantly, anytime anyone recommends I should read it or watch the movie because it is so awesome. Extra punching if the person is older than 12.

erik wrote:And they have been told that it will create a big explosion if broken.

Now, they really should dangle the leash into an oblivion hole to at least get rid of that part since it doesn't break it, it just makes that part never have existed. I don't know what would happen, but I'd do that if it were my character.

You'd fuck around with something literally wrapped around your neck having been told it might cause a giant explosion? No offense, but that makes you sound like the kind of person that needs to have the sharp things locked away when they come over

sabs wrote:Twilight
Or more importantly, anytime anyone recommends I should read it or watch the movie because it is so awesome. Extra punching if the person is older than 12.

Depends which movie. The last one has twelve on-screen decapitations in a hilariously sarcastic 'what-if' sequence, the 'what-if' of course being 'what if this were a series where interesting things happened?'

Yeah that actually made me tear up. I honestly should have seen it coming too.

I hope Thunt doesn't half-ass the story after this, because this is an opportunity for serious character development.

I already blew my load in various other threads, but, just to recap and in roughly ascending order of rage:

Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Ace Attorney 4
Shortpacked past the Mike/Amber hook-up
Comics Curmudgeon past 2010-2011.
ST VOY: Unimatrix Zero
Funky Winkerbean Part 3
FFV's Krile
The entirety of Star Wars: Episode 2, especially the ending.
Crapcom's ongoing stupidity, esp. with Megaman
NWN2: OC Ending
4E D&D Errata
Mass Effect 3 Ending (I haven't even played any of the games and just hearing about it pisses me off)
Naruto chapter 449 and beyond
The last third of Huckleberry Finn
Chrono Cross in general
Spider-Man: One More Day
NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer's Ending, mother FUCKER I am still not over it.

I'm only including stuff in there that genuinely made me angry. Like, angry enough to kick a baby in the balls. If I was going to list stupid shit in general, it'd be a lot longer. I'm also just going to limit it to stuff that unintentionally made me angry. The whole Dr. Bledsoe kicks the protagonist out of college plot in Invisible Man made me furious, but, that was what the author was going for so c'est la vie.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Naruto chapter 449 and beyond

I am familiar with Naruto events in general, but not with numbers, could you spoiler a brief statement about what happens in 449 so I know where it is in the chronology?

Kaelik wrote:I am familiar with Naruto events in general, but not with numbers, could you spoiler a brief statement about what happens in 449 so I know where it is in the chronology?

That's the chapter where Naruto has a sad and faints in the snow after everyone talks about stopping Sasuke.

I didn't abandon the manga over just that but it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I can't believe that in a thread about entertainment which induces the sorts of rage which can only be slaked by violence nobody has yet posted this link.

Only a desperate or cynical person would intimate that website as 'entertainment', Josh.

...You Lost Me wrote:Yeah that actually made me tear up. I honestly should have seen it coming too.

I hope Thunt doesn't half-ass the story after this, because this is an opportunity for serious character development.

Is it? I admit that its been a while seen I read goblins, since... well, its terrible in both art and storytelling, but I had no idea that collar was even still a thing. Partly because it disappears in most panels, lost in the general lack of artistic ability.

The 'character development' seems to be that x number of years later, he's still a monster (which was pretty well established way back at the beginning of the comic, when he and the dwarf were fighting, well, goblins), and she is still a victim.

From a meta-perspective, Herbert is a Real Roleplayer DM, an angry Real Roleplayer DM who does not like his players.

At this point, the only players he can stand are Forgath's, who is at least trying to roleplay, and MixMax's, who is slightly less terrible than the assorted Drizzt Wannabe players.

The Drizzt Wannabe players, he's just given up on. Whenever they ask for a game, he puts them in a Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies scenario, pitting level one characters against optimized high-level killing machines and reveling in the slaughter. But he's actually trying to psychologically manipulate Min Max's player.

He created a NPC love interest who would press all of Min-Max's players psychological buttons to trick him into roleplaying and becoming emotionally invested just so that he could rip them apart like this.

Herbert is a wrathful bastard of a DM.