Scaring the Wizbabes

It was originally with Gloria Krendel, she and Sylvia were best friends and they made the scrapbook TOGETHER.

So this very sweet old woman wanted to keep it so as to honor Sylvia's memory, but Sergeant Skullsplitter stole it to take revenge on Malistaire, this part remains unchanged.

BUT WHAT MADE THIS SHIT HIT WAS THE FLAVOR TEXT AFTER YOU GET THE SCRAP BOOK BACK

Gloria blesses you for bringing back her best friend's scrapbook back and offers that you and her go through it together. In it is a picture of Sylvia laughing, smiling. Gloria reminisces "Oh yes, Sylvia had the most wonderful laugh. It was such a shame you know: Me and Malistaire tried everything we could, but poor Sylvia just never got better. Thank you for bringing this back to me safely child" <- (paraphrased to the best of my memory)

There is something so DEEPLY tragic about that side quest. Here we have two women from different generations making mementos together outside of Malistaire and the first thing we hear about her is of her being HAPPY. The second thing what knowing that multiple people tried very very hard to help Sylvia recover, but nothing worked, adding weight to her death. It puts weight on the fact that her death really meant something to wizard city, that she is not just a random plot tool to move the story along, Sylvia was a person and she was not easily replaced. Even more tragic that she was quickly replaced with Moolinda Wu (No shade to her, business just sucks so much ass).

For Gloria, it supplements her role in the mainline quest as she gives you the supplies for Alchemy that Gretta DarkKettle needed for the anti-curse cure. Gloria is DEEPLY rooted in Wizard City's community and knows everyone.

Not to mention that it humanizes and offers nuance to Malistaire in an arc where we don't normally get to interact with him. It gives us insight into the kind of man he was to his wife and the people around him before the current events. Insight that is later touched on in Mirage.

And what did Kingsilse do?

THEY FUCKING GUTTED IT

they gave that quest to a random reagent vendor in Triton Avenue. All he did was tell you to bring it back from Sergeant Skullsplitter and when he does get it back, all he does is explain that Sylvia helped him fit in Wizard City, get his shop running and make friends. Sad that she died.

NOTHING ABOUT MALISTAIRE, NO EXPLANATION AS TO HER ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY, THIS MAN IS HARDLY USEFUL OUTSIDE OF EXP, AND SYLVIA IS STRIPPED TO WHAT SHE CAN DO FOR OTHER MEN.

My Rockstar fish girl was made with absolute happiness and joy........

here is all the reasons why you should use comicfury (if you aren't already) :

pretty much full control over your custom site design. if you're an HTML/CSS nerd you can go as crazy as you want with it. but for those who aren't so code-savvy, there are also simplified built-in design tools so you can create a unique site for yourself and your work. reject homogeneous minimalism design of bigger platforms, embrace tradition of mid-2000's kitchen sink site design (if that's what you want, that is).

the site demonstrates its own philosophies through its extremely charming vintage 2000's-era site design. it ain't broke so it doesn't need fixing. if it's too 'ugly' for you and wards you off from using the site, then it's succeeding at what it was designed to do.

forums! remember those??? CF sure does!

full view of your comic statistics over the past month, shown as delicious daily line graphs, separated by unique visitors, web page view, and scroll view.

hosting is free. don't want that pesky 'thecomicseries' or 'comicfury' add-on? all you gotta do is purchase your own domain name. contact kyo and they'll take care of the rest.

you can categorize your pages per chapter, making for an easier reading experience

you can include page transcripts for screen-readers as well as mouseover text

you can enable comments per upload and even manage them so that all comments have to be approved by you before they're shared publicly

archive tagging!!! i.e. you can tag uploads with relevant characters / locations / etc. so people can find specific pages easier on your site.

you can run a goddang BLOG on your comic site so that people can read what you've been up to! or don't, it's your choice!

clear filters for NSFW content. the filters do what they must to inform your audience as intended, outside of that, your comic will not be taken down, flagged, or suppressed in search results just because it contains violence or boobies.

they are strictly anti-AI

they do not make licensing deals with third-party companies, so the only 'competition' you have are other indie creators like you, no Marvel or DC nonsense

you're free to embed ads and/or donation buttons on your site and CF will not take off a single cent of it for themselves.

the front page goes to Recently Updated by default, all the other tabs are simply Popular Now and Popular Overall. there's also a Random button if you want to be surprised with something new. while this might seem like a bad thing for people who prefer custom filtering, this unbiased layout prevents the common visibility issues / favoritism / etc. that happen on other platforms.

but if you DO want to find something new that fits your specific tastes? just use their search bar, unlike on Webtoons it actually does what search bars are supposed to do! within the search page you can pick and choose whatever genre tags you want, and you can filter out major NSFW flags you're not comfortable with seeing.

COMICFURY HAS A SCROLL VIEW SETTING THAT YOU CAN ADJUST IN YOUR SETTINGS. THE PLATFORM IS ALREADY DESIGNED TO BE CONSUMABLE ON YOUR PHONE. IT DOESN'T NEED AN APP.

ugh man i'm so sorry for popping off on this very innocent and well-meaning bystander but what did i JUST say

when i say it's a webcomic platform that knows it's a webcomic platform

that's it. no asterisk. that's the POINT OF THE MEME.

it is a website for reading and hosting webcomics. there is no app. and that is why it works.

i realize this might just be a consequence of me being Old™️ compared to the average webcomic consumer / artist, but do y'all know how destructive phone apps have been and still are to webcomic culture? because not only is developing a phone app EXPENSIVE AND TIME-CONSUMING, but it's pretty much impossible to have phone apps now that aren't managed and funnelled through Google and Apple.

that means CENSORSHIP. and CORPORATE INTERFERENCE. and FINANCIAL INVOLVEMENT. which is entirely opposing to WHAT WEBCOMICS ARE.

as soon as indie sites based around free content develop apps, there's a very clear shift in how that site continues to operate, prioritizing corporate standards and profit over usability and community. because otherwise, they can't justify the creation of the app in the first place, and they can't very well maintain that app on account of how expensive it is to do so.

in fact, i can even attest to this from experience! y'know Tapas? the friendly competitor to Webtoons?

this platform used to FUCKING SLAP and then guess what? they released their phone app. and in doing so, they immediately lost the entire fucking plot. their ad revenue program turned to shit, they started prioritizing their advertising and growth towards paywalled comics over the free to read ones, they started restricting the content that was allowed on the platform for the sake of 'brand friendliness' and most of all, they started caring more about what INVESTORS saw rather than what the average user experienced.

and i'm sure that's a heavily biased opinion in which i'm choosing to cast blame on one specific thing instead of all the various things that led to the downfall of this fuckass platform (and i could talk about all those things at length too) but guess what? i don't give a fuck if it IS biased, because i've been there and back and lived to tell the tale and the common denominator in the enshittification of all these major platforms i'm goddamn MEME'ING ON was the phone apps. and most of all, the normalization of corporate involvement which happens the MOMENT you build an app for the Google and/or Apple store.

modern phone apps are NOT about accessibility, they're about money and metrics. that's it.

again, big apologies to the person who left these tags in the reblogs because i know they didn't mean any ill will of it.

but EVERY FUCKING DAY i see y'all complaining that webtoons and tapas are garbage, that they don't let you consume NSFW content without censoring the fuck out of it or removing titles entirely from their platforms, how they progressively tighten paywalls and increase ads to force every last cent out of you, but never ONCE do y'all realize THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

comicfury doesn't have or need a phone app for the same reason that AO3 doesn't have or need a phone app. to put it simply - because it's pointless, a waste of money and effort, and it would just destroy everything that's great about the thing that i'm trying to promote to you in the first place.

⭐️🇺🇸KIDS ACT AND KOSA UPDATE! 🇺🇸⭐️

BAD NEWS:

The Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance KOSA in the markup. The committee's approved version keeps the controversial duty of care provision intact, setting up a major legislative clash with the House of Representatives.

GOOD NEWS:

The Screen Act did not survive the markup! 🎊 (Update: @cofa said it will get a revote! This is ridiculous! I hope it gets shot down again!)

You can read more information on Politico or watch the video on the Senate Commerce Committee site! It's only an hour it was very short! I was surprised.

In the article from Politico/Markup Marsha Blackburn (R) (She is for this bill) said this:

“The Senate cannot and will not accept the version that the House passed earlier. It is toothless, and it is a very pale imitation of the Senate version, and therefore, it is a pale imitation of big tech accountability,” Blackburn said during the committee markup.

(Marsha and crew for these laws GO GET DUNKED ON IN THE SENATE ! Also, this woman looks and sounds like such a Karen literally look up a picture of her. She looks like she calls the cops on her neighbors for having a bbq.😂)

Anyway, from what I watched, this is going to be a HUGE fight in the Senate. This thing is all over the place it's awful to even listen, too! I would LOVE to see them get laughed out of there!

Because on the surface the game looks like your very standard middle grade portal fantasy. Child finds another world, the world is big and confusing and dangerous but they experience power and adventure and wonder and a little bit of fear. It lets the kid experience adventure and freedom while also still going “hey buddy, you’re nine. You gotta listen to your mom”.

Wizard101 continues far past what would be reasonable. Malistaire has his Disney villain defeat, Ambrose says you’re a great wizard and then… the player just… keeps going.

Which is why I think Arc 5 is so fucking interesting actually. Because it goes so long you FORGET THE PREMISE.

There’s a line in Miranda’s notes—

“Earth is a mess. Can’t blame the Wiz-kid for leaving. But adults have responsibilities.”

It’s so ACCUSATORY?

Like do I think arc 5 will really be about how the Wizard “hasn’t grown up”? No. No I think once the metaphysics button gets pressed there is no unpressing it.

But on reread. Miranda herself has this sense of like. I don’t think it’s jealously. For the jealously/“I should have been the hero” arc to take off, typically you wouldn’t see such… ideological opposition? She acts like the former arcs were a waste of time, she distrusts the Arcanum, Bartleby, and she’s too amused by the Wizard to really seem to have a grudge. Either she’s the best liar in the Spiral or her problem with us is way more specific and I think I might know what it is.

I’ve changed my mind a million times on her and I’ll do it again before the next world releases so take this as one of a million lenses but.

I think she does believe the Wizard is being exploited.

LET ME EXPLAIN BECAUSE I AM NOT CLAIMING SECRET ANTIHERO STATUS.

Her strongest political ideology so far in the text is her belief in freedom— freedom of knowledge, freedom of people. Again, unless like 80 percent of her dialogue was a bluff or lie, we can assume those are her true feelings. And we can assume those are her true feelings because they support her argument about Bartleby. Miranda never said “Bartleby’s methods of keeping the Spiral safe are dangerous and lead to more problems”— her argument, way boiled down, is “bartleby is a micromanager, I think micromanaging is unethical and personally I would like to make a choice he won’t like.”

Which would be a fairly understandable position if she wasn’t giving off cosmic endangerment flags.

But I think that’s the argument she’s extending to the Wizard— why be so powerful, so experienced, and still listen to other people? Why stay in the Arcanum and go out on missions at their orders? Why listen to Bartleby instead of moving yourself?

And ironically the Black Lagoon AGREES with her.

There’s a lot of choices in the Black Lagoon but one thing that ISN’T a choice is the whole sequence with the Shadow Self— the Wizard canonically had to confront the idea that just listening to Bartleby will not be enough. That they have to make their own calls. That they must, but, importantly the game doesn’t treat any of your choices, player driven or not, as turning your back or exile. You can let Miranda go at the doors and Bartleby still won’t be mad at you.

But while you can argue that the Wizard’s “folly” is over-reliance, Miranda’s seems to be independence without ANY sort of reliance. She sleeps in a bedroll in the Scholomance surrounded by her notes, presumably AWAY from where the rest of the Broken Branch is. She puts on fronts and drops them on a dime and she LITERALLY ATE A MAGIC SEED THAT MADE HER INPERECEPTABLE TO EVERYONE BUT THE WIZARD. (Which parallels Dasein amazingly— Dasein could only be seen by the Wizard and wanted to interact with the rest of the world. Miranda can only be seen by the Wizard and doesn’t want the rest of the world to see her at ALL.)