Willis is no more self aware than any of the rest of us. He is, in fact, only aware of a model of himself that he himself has created. Our minds put quite a bit of effort into fooling ourselves about this. It turns out to be an incredibly useful trick; useful for planning, communicating, and generally navigating through a world dominated by other people.
Yeah, just like the margarine vs butter thing — frozen custard may have less saturated fat than ice cream, but it’s still just as many calories, and you’re probably gonna eat more of it anyway because of the perception that it’s “healthier”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If Dumbing of Age was a sitcom, do you think it would use canned laughter. It seems to fit the style at some points, but others are simply too dark. Also Mr. Willis seems to urbane for to use such a prosaic techniques.
it’s a Nabokov novel, but it may well be that too, I haven’t read the Hobbit in english past the four first ones. Not that it’d be an hommage, he was known to be abhorrent of everyone short of Flaubert.
I don’t think there was more than one The Hobbit. I was joking about the chapter called “Riddles in the Dark”, where Gollum and the Ring come into the story.
It’d be one of those sitcoms where they shut down the canned laughter at some points because This Is The Serious Bit. Like the last scene of Blackadder Goes Forth.
At least it doesn’t get to Frankenstein‘s level of nesting a life story told within a life story, within a life story, within a story told as the framing device for the actual story.
But the dude in the beginning was trying to explore the North Pole? Maybe he should have gone to Antarctica, wouldn’t have had to hear that whole long story.
Eh, then I’m probably mixing up Frankenstein with one of Poe’s stories. But I remember being interested in hearing about whatever freezing-place exploration was going on, even if it was the polar opposite (so to speak).
Probably? Perhaps? Sometimes I hear people talk about special interests as an appetite for facts about a particular topic, which is true for a lot of people, but mine were more imagination-based (at the time, anyway).
Like I was obsessed with this one Sesame Street episode where there was a random song about vacationing in Antarctica. I tried to play the song on my parents’ piano and ended up making a whole different tune. That was one of the things that got me interested in composing music.
Besides Antarctica, I was also obsessed with this story world I’d made up called (not that imaginatively!) Tiny Little World. The genre changed from fantasy to science fiction before I abandoned it – I’d mostly just imagined scenes rather than writing them down.
…All that patterns quite well with “inattentive type” ADHD – the daydreaming, etc. But I wish I’d actually practiced writing more, since I’m working on a novel now. Also, fingers crossed, recording my first album next month.
A bit slow on both things – I’m 34 – but I’ve got some momentum (and hopefully not like poor Mike falling off that building).
Reading a bit more today about neurochemistry and ADHD. Dopamine seems important. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074512.htm
I’d like to understand better how to improve my executive functioning, since it is so hard to stay on top of everything right now.
Also, I tend to stay away from Pop-Sci of neuro-science like that because of oversimplications, overgeneralizations, and even tho it might be a good **start**, realistically peope don’t treat it like that the same way they just read a wikipedia article and stop there and think they understand it.
Not to mention the fact that people who write popular science often have conflicts of interests, mostly monetary, ESPECIALLY when it comes to popular “psychology” and popular neurology.
One very important thing to know is that us neurodivergents have brains that are not only divergent from neurotypicals, but also each other. It’s been shown that alongside each other, neurodivergent brains display more diversity than the brains of the entire human species.
Long story short, you do you. While it is really good to connect with other neurodivergents in places like this, nobody can know your own brain better than you do. Finding out what works for you and untangling your unique combinations of neurodivergent stripes is a really individualized process, it looks different for everyone!
Sorry for that rambly-ish take on it. Hope it helps tho. Kinda in hypermode right now.
As a gender-fluid neuro-fluid, I am currently an ADHD girl.
Well, Amber taught Dina some social skills, like “look at the eyes, not the mouth,” and “express concern and caring by light physical touch on a non-bathing-suit area.” Ethan helped talk Amber and Dina down through sensory overload and social anxiety episodes. Both Ethan and Amber (and Willis, reportedly) fiddle with Transformers to get the wiggles out and expend the nervous energy in focused fidgeting in a context where calmer focus is needed. And Amber programmed Walky’s phone with an app that “pokes his brain” every 15 minutes to refocus his wandering attention. She also taught him some study skills in a less guilt-ridden and self-doubting way than Dorothy did.
And Ethan apparently has his transformers on a set rotation to create some stability and predictability in an otherwise anxious world. And Mike helped free Ethan from the crushing self-doubt and embrace his inner sexual adventurer. And AmaziGirl is learning to manage her desperate thrill-seeking impulses by channeling them into roller derby. So… yeah. Lots of hacks for dealing with an excess of anxiety and related manifestations.
Thanks for asking! Cataloguing helps. I love to catalogue.
Neurodivergents learning from each other, being presented not as “disorder” but as just living differently. If only the way we described ourselves could keep up.
The problem isn’t just in English, either. In German, the literal most often used translation of Attention Deficit Disorder, is most readily interpreted as, “kids who can’t get enough attention”
Between this and Dorothy’s extremes of shaming Walky for “not trying hard enough” and condescending to Joyce about her neurodivergence, which happens much more often than you think, it’s probably gonna be a long time before we’re accepted more readily out in the world for the diverse ways we are.
But thats alright. At least in communities like this, we can connect in private on shared experiences and offer tips, with so many tales to tell and times to tell them. And that is good. I am thankful for it. 🥲
In German, the literal most often used translation of Attention Deficit Disorder, is most readily interpreted as, “kids who can’t get enough attention”
Yeah there’s a bit in Sandman where Regular Mortal Brent tells a story of visiting World’s End, where he listens to a story dead guy Petrefax tells of a funeral where Master Hermas (among others) tells a story where Mistress Veltis tells a story about a group of Necropolitans visiting World’s End and telling stories to pass the night at which point the narrative collapses on itself.
(I had to go back and forth over some 20 pages about 6 times to get all that straight.)
Used in fact in many other’s as well, often not as deeply as in Frankenstein
From memory, I would cite Swift’s Gulliver, most of Nabokov’s novels (plus footnotes and flashbacks about footnotes), most of Pamuk’s, a few Kafka’s, Shi Nai Huan, Potocki’s Manuscript, a small part of Heart of Darkness, not sure about Odysseus but I’d be tempted to say so without checking, Dumas’ Three Musketeers novels (Bragelonne iirc), Heine’s Demian, Musil’s man without qualities (unwarranted title translation), some Amadou Kourouma’s novel, James’ Turn of the screw, some Conan Doyles, some Agatha Christie…
In fact the list is well too long bc if the narrator is supposed writing, they’re supposed to write about the past and make the narration some kind of flashback (unless it’s nouveau roman – for example Butor’s The modification), by necessity, every fact prior to the narration is a flashback in a flashback. What makes it bad writing is relying on it without any need (surprise, different lighting, and so on), what makes it cheap writing is when what it bring as effect is countered by style lacks, continuity errors, uninteresting lighting, and so on. Basically, it’s like a dream sequence in a movie.
Perhaps silly question: do characters have to be aware they’re in a story for it to “break the fourth wall”?
I mean, panel 2 is definitely self-referential for the comic itself, but Walky isn’t medium-aware. Plus, he didn’t say that WITHIN the “flashback inside another flashback” but after it. If I’m reading things right
I think to properly “break the fourth wall” he would need to do something more explicit, like talk directly to the audience. This sort of self-reference is more like a special kind of dramatic irony. People tend to use “break the fourth wall” loosely, though.
Yeah I mean, if this is what passes for a true “fourth-wall break” then Tolkien broke it as well when he had Frodo and Sam wonder what kind of story they were in Book IV of The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien does break the 4th wall in the hobbit, by directing adressing the reader.(And always makes you feel dumb for not knowing the answers to the riddles, even though yiu actually are reading in a comfortable home).
Does it count as Frodo breaking the 4th wall if we accept Tolkein’s framing device that LotR is merely an English translation of the Red Book of Westmarch written primarily by Bilbo and Frodo?
Frodo may have invented that conversation with Sam to make a point.
Yeah, some editions even give them separate names after Tolkien’s intentions (The Ring Sets Out [I], The Ring Goes South [II], The Treason of Isengard [III], The Ring Goes East [IV], The War of the Ring [V], and The End of the Third Age [VI].)
Trivia fact btw, “The War of the Ring” was actually originally intended to be the title of the third volume as a whole; it was changed to “The Return of the King” at the publisher’s insistence, despite Tolkien’s initial dislike for the title giving away too much of the plot.
I actually don’t think this counts as a fourth wall break; I think this is lampshading. Fourth wall is like, the characters are sort of aware they are watched or framing things as though they are fiction sort of thing. But this seems like lampshading and dramatic irony.
(TV tropes has stuff on the former and wikipedia/dictionaries on the latter, I dislike doing “definitions” because they’re too simplistic, especially since we’re talking semantics here.)
Oh lol I didn’t even read the alt-text, I swear I was mentioning lampshading all on my own and not just sneakily parroting for those who didn’t read it
The closest I get is pointing out blatant misspellings and incorrect homophones in the on-screen graphics the freshly graduated writers put into their newscasts. “Sox slink home after there epic fail” is not appropriate for a news ticker!
For more than a week now, doa is loading really slow. Like, if I’m unlucky, the comic loads only for the upper third of the images. It doesn’t happen with my other webcomics. Any ideas?
Nah, I tried Sharaku’s method and found out that all you need is about 13 gallons of the white cherry-flavored Gatorade to boost your ping up to single digits. It’s great for long raid sessions, but not as great for the digestion.
I don’t usually like to talk about ad blockers here because Willis gets income from them, but most of the loading trouble I’ve ever had here has come from ads on the page being particularly aggressive.
It’s also potentially worth clearing out your cache and cookies for the site, just as a first go to if you haven’t done it already. Sometimes you just need to do a little cleaning up.
Is hanging a lantern on something the same as a 4th wall break? I would have classed it as a similar but different technique. Still meta, but from the author rather than the characters themselves. Walky doesn’t know he’s commenting on the comic itself, but Willis obviously does.
The short version, for those who lack the fortitude to just read a description and not open up 256 tabs: Lampshade Hanging is when a work of fiction takes a normal animal, such as a ferret, and gives it a strange, fantastical name, like a “frambler”. Usually, the viewer/reader is supposed to just follow along with the weird rename.
Calling it a Smeerp would make it sound too sexually enticing, I think. I’m not often privy to the reasons for TV Tropes’s’s naming conventions, although most of the time it seems to be some random phrase from a comic book or Joss Whedon production.
…See, I was about to correct you on the “sir”, but my vocabulary doesn’t include a non-biney variant of formal address. S’pose until I learn one, “ma’am” is closer?
how about San? The Japanese language has had gender-neutral formal titles long before the English language ever existed!
not to mention inventors and developers from Japan can release an AI into the wild without it turning into a misogynistic neo-nazi like it did in America’s case
I’m not Japanese or addressing a Japanese person who’s asked for the courtesy, so I’m not comfortable using their honorifics. If the person addressing me were Japanese, I wouldn’t mind because that’s literally part of their culture, but someone else doing that feels a little weird at best. Also, I don’t think an isolated “san” fits comfortably into an English sentence the same way “sir” or “ma’am” would, but I’m not hip with the Japanese grammar so don’t put a stamp on that one.
You put San after a last name, and Chan after a youngster’s first name.
My mom’s family does it in some contexts. It’s comforting. So, “Mrs./Mr. Smith” might be something like “Sumisu-San.” Very nice, comforting way to relate to people. But I agree, not necessarily what you want outside of Japanese and Nipponophile/Otaku social contexts. (Are those second terms offensive? Apologies if they are! I just mean “Japanese culture enthusiasts.”)
@Laura, “nipponohpile”, a life-long enthusiast of Japanese Culture and Media myself, all I can say is, LOL
Yeah a NB myself I really wish there were more gender-neutral formal addresses, and ones that also sounded better.
But at the same time, there’s a part of me that says fuck it, formal addresses are rooted in classism and elitism so it’s better to just do away with them anyway?
I dunno, just throwing options out there. Options are good. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mx. seems pretty good as a front-facer. “Comrade” and “Colleague” kinda make me wanna try on “Captain” or something like that. Cuz I’m not really a colleague of any sort, “Comrade” is a little Soviet Russia, and “buddy, pal and friend” are too familiar.
Pretty much my feelings on the matter. We either need a whole new word or I guess Mx. is okay. I worry as a femme-presenting enby that people will mishear it but that’s just gonna be a hurdle I gotta hop I guess!
Very much so! Especially when he coupled it with moments of absolute sincerity. Like in The Last Hero. Everything to do with ‘the hero code’ was tongue in cheek. Cohen’s feelings about getting old was absolutely sincere.
Or that Amber assumed he needed space, or didn’t push past initial superficial resistance to attempts to reconnect, since that theory affirmed her own feelings of guilt and desire for reclusion.
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sounds like Walky’s kinda costume
no effort
“we also talked about Self-Demonstrating Articles”
“and Leaning on the Fourth Wall.”
“And Painting the Medium. It’s awful blue out tonight, isn’t it?”
Amazi-girl should go in costume as Amber. Then she can swap out part way through and Amber can have her turn in costume as Amazi-Girl.
Just to confuse everyone.
I would actually laugh so hard
“Bruce Wayne? Why are you dressed up like Batman?”
“DO THE BUTTS MATCH?!”
No breaking the 4th wall in the halls!!!!
It’s okay they’re on garbage roof, lampshade hanging and 4th wall breaks are allowed there presumably
If you break the 4th wall of a hallway is no longer a hallway or does it become an even bigger hallway.
If you break it strategically, you can create an arcade!
A DOA Arcade…. 🤩
A DOA Arcade game…. literally!
and you put fire in it… OK, I see myself out.
there is an if beforehand somewhere, and if an if is missing, how can you tell hypothetical from almost hypothetical.
If you didn’t know this answer was wrong, you wouldn’t be able to tell.
Hypothetically speaking.
precisely almost.
a true hallway only has two walls though.. or one depending on the camera angle.
If a hallway has a door at each end, is it still a hallway, or just a really long and thin room? Ô_o
If it has doors at both ends, it’s a sandwich. Because everything is a fucking sandwich now.
Yeah but what kind of chips? We need details since it will be impossible to tell in this blue hell scape.
Knowing Walky? Doritos and/or Pringles is a safe bet but we’ll have to wait for confirmation.
Don’t you mean nachitos?
Indistinguishable Beige Circle brand.
Sadness chips.
It’s Walky, so all of them.
the question would be more pressing if Jason was the one charged to bring them.
Fortunately, he isn’t there. Yet.
Blue corn chips?
Willis is willing to roast himself for our enjoyment, what a hero.
What is the opposite of “Damn you Willis?”
Bless you David?
Or perhaps Bless I David. Demand more blessings.
“Bless You Willis” was commonly used back in the olden days.
Well nobody can say Willis isn’t self aware
Willis is no more self aware than any of the rest of us. He is, in fact, only aware of a model of himself that he himself has created. Our minds put quite a bit of effort into fooling ourselves about this. It turns out to be an incredibly useful trick; useful for planning, communicating, and generally navigating through a world dominated by other people.
So true!
Guest? Shoot, I forgot to bring the canned laughter.
The best thing about cheese-flavored chips is they’d just blend in with the costume.
AGs costume? Yeah, so would mustard and custard
Have you ever tried frozen custard? It is just like Amber … Amazing (and dangerous to the health of dads everywhere).
Yeah, just like the margarine vs butter thing — frozen custard may have less saturated fat than ice cream, but it’s still just as many calories, and you’re probably gonna eat more of it anyway because of the perception that it’s “healthier”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not healthier. Tastier. Creamier. Superior. Frozen custard us the best
If Dumbing of Age was a sitcom, do you think it would use canned laughter. It seems to fit the style at some points, but others are simply too dark. Also Mr. Willis seems to urbane for to use such a prosaic techniques.
Don’t forget the salacious “oooOOOOoohhh!!”-s whenever two characters start smooching.
and when kids appear, usually. It’d be hilarious to have them whenever Faz or boob-obsessed-Ruth-brother’s whose name is eluding me appears.
Ruth’s brother’s name is Howard.
Riley DeSanto’s the one whose appearances get accompanied by a happy music sting and audience “awww”s.
canned laughter in the dark.
That was the chapter that introduced Gollum, wasn’t it?
it’s a Nabokov novel, but it may well be that too, I haven’t read the Hobbit in english past the four first ones. Not that it’d be an hommage, he was known to be abhorrent of everyone short of Flaubert.
I don’t think there was more than one The Hobbit. I was joking about the chapter called “Riddles in the Dark”, where Gollum and the Ring come into the story.
four first one *pages*, my bad
It’d be one of those sitcoms where they shut down the canned laughter at some points because This Is The Serious Bit. Like the last scene of Blackadder Goes Forth.
I mean we already established they’re aware of being in a comic back in Roomies.
That was a different continuity.
maybe medium awareness carried over
A different continuity within the same multiverse.
Every continuity is in the same multiverse. I guess that means Captain Planet is canonically a character in Dumbing of Age.
Reality itself exists in the Tommy Westphall universe.
Oh, I guess that’s why the fallout didn’t happen until Halloween. They just didn’t see each other.
Also, that last panel seems like it has a clue as to what the fallout is going to be about.
Walky gets the wrong kind of chips.
Plus Walky doesn’t do “feels” good.
(Walky mentioned making a joke at Mike’s funeral that didn’t go over too well.)
That could happen to anyone.
Though I must admit, recruiting Carla to rig it to make Mike suddenly sit up may have been over the top.
Dang, seeing pre-timeskip Walky with a drawn upper lip is kinda surreal.
Also all writing is bad writing unless it’s not. Essentially every writing rule can be broken if you have a reason for it.
But you need to learn the rules so you know when and how to break them.
That’s when you get issued your artistic license.
You don’t get issued artistic license; you have to take it.
The bill comes due later.
I was gonna say, ‘wait, not Danny or Dorothy?’, but I guess Danny and Amber didn’t talk that much after their breakup and Dorothy… kinda the same?
Walky, telecom isn’t real. It was made up by the Italians in November of 1963, to disguise their experiments with interplanetary mind-transference.
You can learn all about it in Columbia Academic Common’s Brain Waves, a Cultural History, though you do have to be willing to read between the lines.
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D89P4HQV/download
It’s a notable document in many respects, not least for its unironic use of the word technoscience.
Last time I downloaded a random .pdf, I had to reset my phone and call an exorcist.
This one is just a pdf of a doctorial dissertation. Though I can’t swear you won’t need an exorcist.
Oh wow, Walky actually enjoys one class.
If telecom involves discussing story telling tropes then I’d down for it aswell.
Also sorry I flagged your comment by accident, it’s been happening to me a few times now.
Didn’t notice it was flagged
So by the end of this I’m going to find out which one of these two I have to blame for SS.HotGarbage ending so soon.
I don’t think it was a ship meant to last. It was less a ship and more a small canoe heading down a rushing river. Fun, exciting, but also brief.
Always about blame, isn’t it.
I have to know who to blame so I know who the hot villain of the story is. It’s integral to my enjoyment of the comic.
I just want to be angry, if not at a person than a cause. Maybe it’s childish but I need to be bitter at something for just a little while.
In that case, I recommend watching Game Theory on YouTube. Those videos never fail to get directly on my nerves.
Signs are pointing to Walky, really.
Amber still feels guilt and at this point is still hallucinating Mike. Walky is known for flippancy and poking needlessly at sensitive issues.
oh, man. is this going to end badly because of walky’s inability to separate amber and amazigirl
And, maybe, because he seemed like he was seeing them as separate before.
No, if its something do to what walky did I feel like it’s going to be do to his insistivity to something bugging her since Mike kicked the bucket.
Nice lampshade hanging there, although isn’t Arabian Nights set up with a bunch of multi-level flashbacks?
At least it doesn’t get to Frankenstein‘s level of nesting a life story told within a life story, within a life story, within a story told as the framing device for the actual story.
Ah, yes. It’s an epistolary novel! I think.
I liked that whole framing device, though I was disappointed Shelley didn’t write more about Antarctica. I was obsessed with Antarctica as a kid.
But the dude in the beginning was trying to explore the North Pole? Maybe he should have gone to Antarctica, wouldn’t have had to hear that whole long story.
Eh, then I’m probably mixing up Frankenstein with one of Poe’s stories. But I remember being interested in hearing about whatever freezing-place exploration was going on, even if it was the polar opposite (so to speak).
Oooo! Is it a special interest of yours? In the neurodivergent sense?
Probably? Perhaps? Sometimes I hear people talk about special interests as an appetite for facts about a particular topic, which is true for a lot of people, but mine were more imagination-based (at the time, anyway).
Like I was obsessed with this one Sesame Street episode where there was a random song about vacationing in Antarctica. I tried to play the song on my parents’ piano and ended up making a whole different tune. That was one of the things that got me interested in composing music.
Besides Antarctica, I was also obsessed with this story world I’d made up called (not that imaginatively!) Tiny Little World. The genre changed from fantasy to science fiction before I abandoned it – I’d mostly just imagined scenes rather than writing them down.
…All that patterns quite well with “inattentive type” ADHD – the daydreaming, etc. But I wish I’d actually practiced writing more, since I’m working on a novel now. Also, fingers crossed, recording my first album next month.
A bit slow on both things – I’m 34 – but I’ve got some momentum (and hopefully not like poor Mike falling off that building).
Hej, best of luck with your album and novel! How exciting! *clap clap clap, twinkle twinkle sparkle*
And 34 is NOT slow. Anyone under 50 is still just a youngster in my book.
Hey, I used to daydream ALL the time as a kid too! Might be one of my ADHD-style stripes!
I practiced writing a lot too, and at one point was even writing scientific papers! Don’t worry, you’ll get there, just keep going!
*plays “Send Me On My Way” by Rusted Root on hacked muzak*
Reading a bit more today about neurochemistry and ADHD. Dopamine seems important. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074512.htm
I’d like to understand better how to improve my executive functioning, since it is so hard to stay on top of everything right now.
Gotta learn some of the hacks that Amber taught Walky. She and Ethan are good teachers, both of them.
Just what hacks would those be?
Also, I tend to stay away from Pop-Sci of neuro-science like that because of oversimplications, overgeneralizations, and even tho it might be a good **start**, realistically peope don’t treat it like that the same way they just read a wikipedia article and stop there and think they understand it.
Not to mention the fact that people who write popular science often have conflicts of interests, mostly monetary, ESPECIALLY when it comes to popular “psychology” and popular neurology.
One very important thing to know is that us neurodivergents have brains that are not only divergent from neurotypicals, but also each other. It’s been shown that alongside each other, neurodivergent brains display more diversity than the brains of the entire human species.
Long story short, you do you. While it is really good to connect with other neurodivergents in places like this, nobody can know your own brain better than you do. Finding out what works for you and untangling your unique combinations of neurodivergent stripes is a really individualized process, it looks different for everyone!
Sorry for that rambly-ish take on it. Hope it helps tho. Kinda in hypermode right now.
As a gender-fluid neuro-fluid, I am currently an ADHD girl.
Well, Amber taught Dina some social skills, like “look at the eyes, not the mouth,” and “express concern and caring by light physical touch on a non-bathing-suit area.” Ethan helped talk Amber and Dina down through sensory overload and social anxiety episodes. Both Ethan and Amber (and Willis, reportedly) fiddle with Transformers to get the wiggles out and expend the nervous energy in focused fidgeting in a context where calmer focus is needed. And Amber programmed Walky’s phone with an app that “pokes his brain” every 15 minutes to refocus his wandering attention. She also taught him some study skills in a less guilt-ridden and self-doubting way than Dorothy did.
And Ethan apparently has his transformers on a set rotation to create some stability and predictability in an otherwise anxious world. And Mike helped free Ethan from the crushing self-doubt and embrace his inner sexual adventurer. And AmaziGirl is learning to manage her desperate thrill-seeking impulses by channeling them into roller derby. So… yeah. Lots of hacks for dealing with an excess of anxiety and related manifestations.
Thanks for asking! Cataloguing helps.
I love to catalogue.
Wonderful!!!
All wonderful!!!! 🥲🥰
Neurodivergents learning from each other, being presented not as “disorder” but as just living differently. If only the way we described ourselves could keep up.
The problem isn’t just in English, either. In German, the literal most often used translation of Attention Deficit Disorder, is most readily interpreted as, “kids who can’t get enough attention”
Between this and Dorothy’s extremes of shaming Walky for “not trying hard enough” and condescending to Joyce about her neurodivergence, which happens much more often than you think, it’s probably gonna be a long time before we’re accepted more readily out in the world for the diverse ways we are.
But thats alright. At least in communities like this, we can connect in private on shared experiences and offer tips, with so many tales to tell and times to tell them. And that is good. I am thankful for it. 🥲
In German, the literal most often used translation of Attention Deficit Disorder, is most readily interpreted as, “kids who can’t get enough attention”
source?
wundert mich wirklich…
ADHD Alien
I think they got 4-5 levels deep in Sandman.
Yeah there’s a bit in Sandman where Regular Mortal Brent tells a story of visiting World’s End, where he listens to a story dead guy Petrefax tells of a funeral where Master Hermas (among others) tells a story where Mistress Veltis tells a story about a group of Necropolitans visiting World’s End and telling stories to pass the night at which point the narrative collapses on itself.
(I had to go back and forth over some 20 pages about 6 times to get all that straight.)
Midsummer Night’s Dream, too.
Used in fact in many other’s as well, often not as deeply as in Frankenstein
From memory, I would cite Swift’s Gulliver, most of Nabokov’s novels (plus footnotes and flashbacks about footnotes), most of Pamuk’s, a few Kafka’s, Shi Nai Huan, Potocki’s Manuscript, a small part of Heart of Darkness, not sure about Odysseus but I’d be tempted to say so without checking, Dumas’ Three Musketeers novels (Bragelonne iirc), Heine’s Demian, Musil’s man without qualities (unwarranted title translation), some Amadou Kourouma’s novel, James’ Turn of the screw, some Conan Doyles, some Agatha Christie…
In fact the list is well too long bc if the narrator is supposed writing, they’re supposed to write about the past and make the narration some kind of flashback (unless it’s nouveau roman – for example Butor’s The modification), by necessity, every fact prior to the narration is a flashback in a flashback. What makes it bad writing is relying on it without any need (surprise, different lighting, and so on), what makes it cheap writing is when what it bring as effect is countered by style lacks, continuity errors, uninteresting lighting, and so on. Basically, it’s like a dream sequence in a movie.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, the novel (footnotes within footnotes, and the footnotes tell their own, completely separate story)
same as Nabokov’s Pale Fire, then (the contrast between the inital poems, and the critical apparatus is a good part of the joke)
Also to be fair it’s just a “flashback in a flashback” is just so easy to make fun of.
Perhaps silly question: do characters have to be aware they’re in a story for it to “break the fourth wall”?
I mean, panel 2 is definitely self-referential for the comic itself, but Walky isn’t medium-aware. Plus, he didn’t say that WITHIN the “flashback inside another flashback” but after it. If I’m reading things right
If the character acknowledges the concept of fiction in any way or interacts with any other characters, that’s a 4th Wall break.
I think to properly “break the fourth wall” he would need to do something more explicit, like talk directly to the audience. This sort of self-reference is more like a special kind of dramatic irony. People tend to use “break the fourth wall” loosely, though.
Yeah I mean, if this is what passes for a true “fourth-wall break” then Tolkien broke it as well when he had Frodo and Sam wonder what kind of story they were in Book IV of The Lord of the Rings.
(Just recently re-read that part, so it was fresh in the memory)
Tolkien does break the 4th wall in the hobbit, by directing adressing the reader.(And always makes you feel dumb for not knowing the answers to the riddles, even though yiu actually are reading in a comfortable home).
I didn’t mention The Hobbit for that reason.
A couple of bits early on in Fellowship as well, when it still had something of the same tone as the Hobbit. One was a talking fox, iirc.
I wouldn’t call the bit with Sam and Frodo breaking the 4th Wall. I’ve herd enough similar discussions in real life.
Does it count as Frodo breaking the 4th wall if we accept Tolkein’s framing device that LotR is merely an English translation of the Red Book of Westmarch written primarily by Bilbo and Frodo?
Frodo may have invented that conversation with Sam to make a point.
Thank you. That fourth wall thing is nearing strawman’s use of strawman.
I don’t recall that Lord of the Rings had a fourth volume.
It’s laid out as six books in three volumes.
Yeah, some editions even give them separate names after Tolkien’s intentions (The Ring Sets Out [I], The Ring Goes South [II], The Treason of Isengard [III], The Ring Goes East [IV], The War of the Ring [V], and The End of the Third Age [VI].)
Trivia fact btw, “The War of the Ring” was actually originally intended to be the title of the third volume as a whole; it was changed to “The Return of the King” at the publisher’s insistence, despite Tolkien’s initial dislike for the title giving away too much of the plot.
I actually don’t think this counts as a fourth wall break; I think this is lampshading. Fourth wall is like, the characters are sort of aware they are watched or framing things as though they are fiction sort of thing. But this seems like lampshading and dramatic irony.
(TV tropes has stuff on the former and wikipedia/dictionaries on the latter, I dislike doing “definitions” because they’re too simplistic, especially since we’re talking semantics here.)
Oh lol I didn’t even read the alt-text, I swear I was mentioning lampshading all on my own and not just sneakily parroting for those who didn’t read it
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t really count as a fourth wall break if the character isn’t aware that they’re in a work of fiction.
These two are iconic. Never thought I’d say it during shortpacked but there ya go.
Oh, that poor fourth wall
oh no.
*Walky and Amazi-Girl look at the camera like in The Office*
Now we know what went wrong at Halloween: Walky forgot the chips.
Worse. He showed up with empty bags and greasy fingers.
The fiend.
With this level of fourth-wall breaking, I’m wondering if Walky’s gonna go to the party as Deadpool.
The Dead Pool already has its first few “winners”.
As a person who works for a telecom, god I wish more of my job revolves around writing critique
The closest I get is pointing out blatant misspellings and incorrect homophones in the on-screen graphics the freshly graduated writers put into their newscasts. “Sox slink home after there epic fail” is not appropriate for a news ticker!
“Sox git pwn’d lmao”
Hmm. Wonder if Joe will be at this party.
For more than a week now, doa is loading really slow. Like, if I’m unlucky, the comic loads only for the upper third of the images. It doesn’t happen with my other webcomics. Any ideas?
Drink more Gatorade, probably.
I mean, it won’t help, but at least you will have drunken more Gatorade.
Maybe if you drink enough of it, you’ll get lots of extra electrolytes and those will boost your WiFi connection.
As a scientist i can confirm this to be accurate.
It’s like eating a glowing mushroom to recharge your radio’s batteries.
Eh, only if you’re next to the wifi source. If so, maybe only a marginal difference.
Speaking as a STEM major.
Nah, I tried Sharaku’s method and found out that all you need is about 13 gallons of the white cherry-flavored Gatorade to boost your ping up to single digits. It’s great for long raid sessions, but not as great for the digestion.
Have you done the experiment with a control group? Have you ruled out any other factors?
I drank the sports drink and better wifi happened. That’s all the science I need. It’s expensive but so is everything cool.
I don’t usually like to talk about ad blockers here because Willis gets income from them, but most of the loading trouble I’ve ever had here has come from ads on the page being particularly aggressive.
It’s also potentially worth clearing out your cache and cookies for the site, just as a first go to if you haven’t done it already. Sometimes you just need to do a little cleaning up.
To quote early Schlock Mercenary: “Easy on that fourth wall [Walky], we only just had it repaired.”
Is hanging a lantern on something the same as a 4th wall break? I would have classed it as a similar but different technique. Still meta, but from the author rather than the characters themselves. Walky doesn’t know he’s commenting on the comic itself, but Willis obviously does.
Interested in other opinions!
Usually called lampshade hanging. Not breaking the fourth wall but kinda leaning dangerously close.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
NO! What have you DONE?! Don’t link to the time drain site! NNNNOOOOOooooo…
Twenty hours later…
I regret nothing.
What year is it?! I think I finally closed the last tab…
The short version, for those who lack the fortitude to just read a description and not open up 256 tabs: Lampshade Hanging is when a work of fiction takes a normal animal, such as a ferret, and gives it a strange, fantastical name, like a “frambler”. Usually, the viewer/reader is supposed to just follow along with the weird rename.
Why they called it a Lampshade Hanging and not something sensible, like a Smeerp, is unclear.
Calling it a Smeerp would make it sound too sexually enticing, I think. I’m not often privy to the reasons for TV Tropes’s’s naming conventions, although most of the time it seems to be some random phrase from a comic book or Joss Whedon production.
I’m sexually enticed by this Smeerp. Elaborate.
You are a horrible, horrible, person, sir.
…See, I was about to correct you on the “sir”, but my vocabulary doesn’t include a non-biney variant of formal address. S’pose until I learn one, “ma’am” is closer?
how about San? The Japanese language has had gender-neutral formal titles long before the English language ever existed!
not to mention inventors and developers from Japan can release an AI into the wild without it turning into a misogynistic neo-nazi like it did in America’s caseI’m not Japanese or addressing a Japanese person who’s asked for the courtesy, so I’m not comfortable using their honorifics. If the person addressing me were Japanese, I wouldn’t mind because that’s literally part of their culture, but someone else doing that feels a little weird at best. Also, I don’t think an isolated “san” fits comfortably into an English sentence the same way “sir” or “ma’am” would, but I’m not hip with the Japanese grammar so don’t put a stamp on that one.
You put San after a last name, and Chan after a youngster’s first name.
My mom’s family does it in some contexts. It’s comforting. So, “Mrs./Mr. Smith” might be something like “Sumisu-San.” Very nice, comforting way to relate to people. But I agree, not necessarily what you want outside of Japanese and Nipponophile/Otaku social contexts. (Are those second terms offensive? Apologies if they are! I just mean “Japanese culture enthusiasts.”)
Youngsters’ first names are often shortened to one syllable, though.
If you wanna avoid being offensive with actual words from the language, you could always just say “weeaboo” for That Sort of Person.
I guess so. I meant it in a more positive sense, though.
@Laura, “nipponohpile”, a life-long enthusiast of Japanese Culture and Media myself, all I can say is, LOL
Yeah a NB myself I really wish there were more gender-neutral formal addresses, and ones that also sounded better.
But at the same time, there’s a part of me that says fuck it, formal addresses are rooted in classism and elitism so it’s better to just do away with them anyway?
I dunno, just throwing options out there. Options are good. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow, we really need to get on the idea of an enby form of sir/ma’am.
The internet suggests:
– Mx. (“Mix”)
– Comrade
– Colleague
– Buddy, Pal, Friend
I’m not sure how I feel about any of them honestly, but Comrade at least makes me laugh.
Mx. seems pretty good as a front-facer. “Comrade” and “Colleague” kinda make me wanna try on “Captain” or something like that. Cuz I’m not really a colleague of any sort, “Comrade” is a little Soviet Russia, and “buddy, pal and friend” are too familiar.
Pretty much my feelings on the matter. We either need a whole new word or I guess Mx. is okay. I worry as a femme-presenting enby that people will mishear it but that’s just gonna be a hurdle I gotta hop I guess!
How about “compa”? Short for compañer@.
As Taffy said, I’d probably prefer not to borrow a word from a language/culture that isn’t my own.
Makes sense. Thanks for that perspective!
– Esteemed Fellow Poster
Yep. I was taught it as “Hanging a lantern on something” so that’s how I say it.
I like that description. More poetic.
Personally I think it’s a neat technique, but the work usually needs to be a bit tongue in cheek to pull it off.
Very much so! Terry Pratchett was a king of it lol.
Very much so! Especially when he coupled it with moments of absolute sincerity. Like in The Last Hero. Everything to do with ‘the hero code’ was tongue in cheek. Cohen’s feelings about getting old was absolutely sincere.
Little mouse boy is helping
No, Walky. Jennifer not-yet-nee Billie still thinks she’s other-Rachel.
“I’m kinda sloppy”, said the man with the 5 months and a half buffer.
Walky. Taking make-up sessions ? woaah
If the Irrational Walky Haters ever find out about this, their brains are gonna explode at a conceptual level.
Walky is bringing chips. Did he say they’re for everybody?
In a way, they’re for everyone’s benefit, if only because they know he’ll eat them and potentially be too distracted for the other snacks.
My! Would you look at that beautiful lampshade!
I think this proves it was Ethan that requested space and Amber didn’t just “drop” him as a friend.
Or that Amber assumed he needed space, or didn’t push past initial superficial resistance to attempts to reconnect, since that theory affirmed her own feelings of guilt and desire for reclusion.
Damn it’s always more complicated than I thought.
Glad to see amazi-girl back for more than three panels
Wonder how Amber is taking this, since amazi-girl seems… Relatively chill about it