Hissssss!

Random, contentious scribbles. Longer scribbles some day, maybe.

[caendtowntrash]

Okay so initially I wasn't going to keep up on it but a lost webcomic thread I went into on /co/ just had this plastered in there and I gotta say something: Aaron has the BLACK character, and we know Gustine is black, doing this?

Bro??? Listen, if it was as simple as 'Gustine doesn't trust Admin and the rats because of her experiences with Security AND Jackrabbit, and suspects wolves are being scapegoated to hide some bigger conspiracy happening' I could theoretically buy that, sure. Still can't sell me she would sit idly by while her husband (that she went on a whole fucking adventure for and sacrificed ending her own body dysphoria to bring him back to life for) gets beaten in the streets and shot at But this? THIS? Really? This. This is what Aaron's decided to run with.

Dottie was bad, Holly was worse, but seeing Gustine reduced to this is some potent psychic damage. Insanely vile.

[reworntruckload]

Weren't they "volunteered" for one of the worst jobs in Endtown? It doesn't get any more under classed than that.

(Shitty fan theory that definitely won't be true: Grout's incompetence is a ruse and he's some sort of Machiavellian villain, hiding in plain sight while gaining power and undermining Endtown from the inside.

Not investigating the pig murders, only sending one officer to a known riot, letting known cannibals roam free, letting active sectarian/gang violence reign freely in the streets, all while acceding to head of security.

Things started going down hill in Endtown once he showed up. Coincidence? )

[reptileranting]

Adding this to my list of theories that make up the Grand Unified Endtown Theory, which will make Endtown make perfect sense once it is complete.....

[caendtowntrash]

Total Endtown lockdown it seems, which to be honest felt like the case even back during the Pig Arc given how it sounded like Jacob was about to say something regarding sending Heather to the surface and how exile was not in the cards for Foxworthy. Mallard mention finally, but I'm still not confident about what we'll see. Also seems the hydroponics were finally figured out offscreen? I guess it's been long enough, I don't have the strip where Mallard's assistants talk about the timeframe to it but if it was about 2 years after Al and Gustine's era that's definitely enough time.

[caendtowntrash]

I think it was Flask that actually did the insane foraging missions that got the pantries full rather than Jackrabbit (I think he said he's the one that dialed them back). Even so, there was a limited amount of food on the surface and other colonies taking more than even Endtown while leaving them nothing but beans (as per Al's foraging missions at the very start). It just seems insane to me that Endtown managed to get such an incredible surplus to fill the pantries, even in the Pig Arc when it was insisted. Mentioning that the fungus or hydroponic research developments were complete or nearly complete in Pig Arc would've pulled serious weight but that required decent writing and follow through from a plot point introduced after the Rocket Arc. If anything Pig Arc just seemed to smack anyone expecting the implication from Allie's failed foraging mission and the demonstration in Unity how bad food scarcity was and the natural progression of logic from that point (the public starting to worry over food scarcity). You dare think that dwindling resources would also be a problem for Endtown? You absolute FOOL. IDIOT. Bet you feel stupid, just like expecting Jacob would be the focus antagonist! /s

[reptileranting]

Yeah, i checked and you are right. It's Flask who did it and Jacob who stopped it. Thanks for clarifying!

[caendtowntrash]

Dude.

It's AI animated I can't even Cracked Cat song is cute I guess, and this also explains why the comic's been updating so slow.

[reptileranting]

evil demon possession side effects a) leaking black good b) rotoscoped mouth CA: i wished Terry would display emotions

*monkey paw curls* re: this

[caendtowntrash]

"Man, Endtown would look so cool animated..." "I wish Terry actually emoted!" I should just stop asking lmao

[reptileranting]

Made a meme out of it. Wished it was funnier, but i at least hope i kept the text to a reasonable limit.

[caendtowntrash]

Dude.

It's AI animated I can't even Cracked Cat song is cute I guess, and this also explains why the comic's been updating so slow.

[reptileranting]

evil demon possession side effects a) leaking black good b) rotoscoped mouth CA: i wished Terry would display emotions

*monkey paw curls* re: this

[caendtowntrash]

New update and an actual ad for book 5 which I assume is the Eden arc? Wonder how thick that one will be...I still need to buy book 3 so i have all the reference material I'll need. Been plucking up 1 and 2 lately to make some notes I'll need for TT. Looking over older strips Al saying Gustine sympathizes with the wolves....I dunno. That's strange. I can understand Gustine being incapable of leaving because they will starve topside and having to, in frustration, deal with the collapsing societal issues with Endtown, but I cannot imagine her sympathizing with the wolves who paraded a woman's corpse through the street and killed a man in a bar for the crime of defending her in the trial.

Is he Dottie'ing Gustine next...?

[reptileranting]

Another skeleton for Marx' doppelganger cellar. Petey calling Al out for not breaking up with Gustine seems like a really weird equivalency between her sympathy and Flak's planned mass murder, so i am personally pretty sure she's been Dottied. Ironic, considering Petey used to be on the other side of the arguement, arguing that even Topsiders don't deserve to be genocided. I am still wondering how Marx involvement in any of it could possibly be justified as being for the "greater good". This arc adds another questionable decision on his plan. >Build a bunker for anthros to survive the fallout of a futuristic war. >Skip the hydroponics. >Get immortal military police thugs. Be okay with them lobotomizing everyone and make a breeding farm if things go south. >This will cause the survivors to only eat beans, start cannibal cults and kill 7% of the population in a malthusian calculus. >Also, wolves snap and turn into evil demon orcs when discriminated agianst but you don't inform anyone about that, not even your military police thugs. >Hand the most powerful corporation suits so they can claim the most dangerous weapons and carry out that genocide. >Don't inform them that they are doomed anyway. >Ensure rabbit Hitler's rise to power. Secretly kill and replace rabbit Hitler with responsible civics rabbit. >The general societal decay will cause two of the pawns in your plan to engage in a self-destructive quest across the wasteland and destroys one of them mentally. >Through convoluted circumstances, this will land your surviving pawn where it needs to be so you can use it like a poisoned bait and jam another soul into it. >Let your pet project decay because you set it up for failure. >???????????????? >Feel sad. >Greater good achieved. I know my memory about Endtown isn't the best. Also, this is just another detail on the already enormous pile of Marx' misdeeds, but still. Morbidly curious how this'll be justified. Even if it's literally "i, the all-knowing sorcerer, tried everything in parallel universes and only this works", i'd be unconvinced. If you deal in multiverses, there must have been less twisted and convoluted ways to achieve your goals.

Regardless, i find the collective guilt the story deals in silly. Unless wolves in Endtown are all born into a hive mind of nazi-maoists gangsters ready to kill, there will have been mostly innocent wolves who have been killed in the rats' massacre. Not that weird to feel bad for those. Is the comic's biggest problem with mass murdering a conflation of political and ethnic minorities that it's bad optics and makes the "woke reverse racists" able to play the victim card?

[reworntruckload]

I was going to say the same thing about Petey calling out Al when Flask was far worse.

And on the note of the wolf slaughter, if I remember the Pig arc correctly, half of the cannibals weren't even wolves.

[reptileranting]

Irc, they are barely in on it. Mavis said "the wolves" mostly are just the pawn of the cannibals, whom they used as scapegoat because they turn into an raving horde that threatens to destroy the city the moment they think they are discriminated against because they are so volatile and dumb. (Checks out "thanks" to the reveals from Amesworth's side...)

[caendtowntrash]

New update and an actual ad for book 5 which I assume is the Eden arc? Wonder how thick that one will be...I still need to buy book 3 so i have all the reference material I'll need. Been plucking up 1 and 2 lately to make some notes I'll need for TT. Looking over older strips Al saying Gustine sympathizes with the wolves....I dunno. That's strange. I can understand Gustine being incapable of leaving because they will starve topside and having to, in frustration, deal with the collapsing societal issues with Endtown, but I cannot imagine her sympathizing with the wolves who paraded a woman's corpse through the street and killed a man in a bar for the crime of defending her in the trial.

Is he Dottie'ing Gustine next...?

[reptileranting]

Another skeleton for Marx' doppelganger cellar. Petey calling Al out for not breaking up with Gustine seems like a really weird equivalency between her sympathy and Flak's planned mass murder, so i am personally pretty sure she's been Dottied. Ironic, considering Petey used to be on the other side of the arguement, arguing that even Topsiders don't deserve to be genocided. I am still wondering how Marx involvement in any of it could possibly be justified as being for the "greater good". This arc adds another questionable decision on his plan. >Build a bunker for anthros to survive the fallout of a futuristic war. >Skip the hydroponics. >Get immortal military police thugs. Be okay with them lobotomizing everyone and make a breeding farm if things go south. >This will cause the survivors to only eat beans, start cannibal cults and kill 7% of the population in a malthusian calculus. >Also, wolves snap and turn into evil demon orcs when discriminated agianst but you don't inform anyone about that, not even your military police thugs. >Hand the most powerful corporation suits so they can claim the most dangerous weapons and carry out that genocide. >Don't inform them that they are doomed anyway. >Ensure rabbit Hitler's rise to power. Secretly kill and replace rabbit Hitler with responsible civics rabbit. >The general societal decay will cause two of the pawns in your plan to engage in a self-destructive quest across the wasteland and destroys one of them mentally. >Through convoluted circumstances, this will land your surviving pawn where it needs to be so you can use it like a poisoned bait and jam another soul into it. >Let your pet project decay because you set it up for failure. >???????????????? >Feel sad. >Greater good achieved. I know my memory about Endtown isn't the best. Also, this is just another detail on the already enormous pile of Marx' misdeeds, but still. Morbidly curious how this'll be justified. Even if it's literally "i, the all-knowing sorcerer, tried everything in parallel universes and only this works", i'd be unconvinced. If you deal in multiverses, there must have been less twisted and convoluted ways to achieve your goals.

Regardless, i find the collective guilt the story deals in silly. Unless wolves in Endtown are all born into a hive mind of nazi-maoists gangsters ready to kill, there will have been mostly innocent wolves who have been killed in the rats' massacre. Not that weird to feel bad for those. Is the comic's biggest problem with mass murdering a conflation of political and ethnic minorities that it's bad optics and makes the "woke reverse racists" able to play the victim card?

[ilajue]

drew over something i wrote for a class and liked :] sorry the cars are lowkey ugly, its because I fucking hate cars and cant be bothered to learn what they look like beyond ominous hunks of metal

edit: transcript of the poem by itself under the cut

6 Tips for Crossing the Road

Look both ways

The road is for cars. 

Make sure to look for them before crossing. Even when you have the right of way, cars have a lot of safety features and you have none. 

Use designated crosswalks 

The road is for cars. 

So is the crosswalk but, under brief and temporary conditions, you can use it too! Never jaywalk, never walk in the road, just hope there is a clear and functional sidewalk. 

Cross at the light

The road is for cars. 

There are rules and signs for them, but that can only go so far. Walk quickly and hold your breath and hope that the light doesn't turn. Make eye contact with drivers as their cars teem with potential energy, rumbling with disdain at the inconvenience of your crossing. Try to ignore the cloud of exhaust that you are in and they are above. 

Leash your pets

The road is for cars. 

Obviously. 

To you, it may be natural to sacrifice so much space to them but to your dog, it is not. His instinct is to explore freely. You must curb it. Modern US car models have such high hoods that the average child, let alone dog, is obscured. Even on the sidewalk, hold the leash tight because the sidewalk (if you are so blessed) is next to the street and the threat still looms.

Look out for road kill

The road is for cars. 

And no one was there to leash the deer. 

Or the raccoon. 

Or the cat. 

Did you know that the most reliable sample method for wildlife in an area is looking at the roadkill? 

Remember these tips

The road is for cars. 

Cars are everywhere. In the city. In the suburbs. In the country. In the woods (the US Forest Service manages more roads than the entire Ministry of Transit in China.) Cars are everywhere because there are roads to bring them there, which is great if you are a car and want to get from place to place fast without worrying about the in-between. 

Unfortunately, you are not a car. 

You are an animal. 

You are in-between. 

So remember to look both ways. 

[topsidetales]

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[reptileranting]

*tips fedora* M'impending disaster.

On that topic; Does Joel shave? Jokes aside, he actually pulls the hard-boiled detective look off.

[dragons-and-the-setting-sun]

About my writing

My chapters are too long mostly for tumblr to process. I am on royal road for now and will try to use this blog to post about the fiction instead. Check it out! https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/106605/itzil/chapter/2078472/the-setting-sun

[caendtowntrash]

For some reason I wasn't allowed to reblog to continue this chain but that's fine I can just do this.

I'll be honest, I thought you stopped following because of that 'Beat a Furry Day' joke I reblogged a while back, I didn't know Joel would be that much of a filter on his own. That said, I don't really understand how Joel is so offputting when he's (generally) right about Clovis and Clovis himself is someone who pretty plainly deserves his treatment. Joel's an asshole but he is by and large far lesser a dick than Flask who is like a dark mirror version of him taken to full extremes. I think I've said a few times in the threads, even here, that Clovis is a typical Topsider who did Topsider things before TT and the point of his dream sequence was about that. Joel's a father and tasked with protecting N.O. from obliteration and namely the Topsider threat.

They both have things on the line and prioritize accordingly. Finally, I'm not sure what you mean is confusing? Is it that Joel is waving off the potential of finding a cure because he thinks Apex already knows how it works and is letting everything happen for the sake of controlling all of humanity? That's still only his theory, and given Clovis was already shown to have misgivings about Apex at the start of TT (and again mentioned by Bernard and Sue in the chapter before Turned Tables) he's liable to seriously consider things like that even if he wants more than anything to believe it isn't true (which was the point of the detector going nuts when he unwittingly lied about always trusting Apex's word).

I thought I set up pretty well that Clovis has cognitive dissonance regarding Apex, how he distrusts them and at the same time how he does mental gymnastics to find an escape from disturbing considerations he might be forced to face head-on but maybe it's too subtle? Joel's the sledgehammer to that mental mechanism of his, really forcing him to think about things he normally wouldn't.

[reptileranting]

I remember writing this when Joel tears apart Clovis' trust in Apex. He is really clear-sighted there but still commits understandable errors of judgement because he is glad to fill in the gaps with assumptions. I was ambivalent before, but this won me over to the idea of his character. Plus, the Nazis really talked about a New Order of Europe, so to me he's less a conspiracy theorist than it looks when he accuses Apex as a global actor of planning the world-wide version of it. I caught on that Clovis was thoroughly indoctrinated and fighting against his empathy resurfacing. For me, Joel might have come on too strong before, especially because we did not see him becoming hardened and psychologically scarred from surviving Apex. We saw him dishing out the hurt, but not taking the hurt from seeing his friends marched of to die or killed in scavenging operations and the horrifying propaganda Apex would deploy against him. I don't think it's entirely wrong to do so, because Joel's actions might be too easily excused, but he could benefit from a condensed flashback about his past, maybe? Idk. I feel it's really understandable how Joel acts like he does at his lowest, though it's not moral. But war, bitter necessities and bare survival are bad for anyone's character and sanity, so i still think he is sympathetic and well-realized. I don't think i would act better if i was in his place, even if i wished i would.

[caendtowntrash]

[reptileranting]

Endtown has an unaccountable, unstoppable, immoral and immortal uberbrutal police force that kills in literal truck loads and is ready to unleash medical horrors if they ever tire of playing.

Amazing this comic is trying to be pro-police.

[caendtowntrash]

It’s honestly hard to say if it IS pro-police because the Pig Arc pretty blatantly shows that Grout’s police force is incompetent and grossly compliant with Jacob’s leadership. Milk Trial made it seem like they were being cut out of policing by the rats who unapologetically were portrayed for many arcs as cruel, stupid, and violent but honestly Grout’s police is a thin step up from the alternative.

And the town policing itself is also shown as unambiguously bad given the lynching of Allgood the second he left Administration. Kind of curious why this arc didn’t start with another wolf getting lynched if the last arc was so insistent about the town fearing and hating the wolves.

I think this may be an ‘other side’ take like TT where it’s designed to humanize the villains of previous arcs…except I think unlike Topsiders who are put through a level of existential and sensory torture that wrings them out to be the way they are, the Endtown Rats are ‘cursed’ with immortality and their assigned role in Endtown itself as being thankless and endless.

There’s probably some message like ‘the proles should be grateful the rats aren’t nearly as tyrannical as they deserve to be’ because with their positions in Admin and guns they could so very easily coup the leadership and starve out the town by locking access to Admin (including the food pantries). I don’t think that’s a message anyone will be willing to buy, though.

[reptileranting]

I think the wolves aren't meant to be sympathised with and that's why they aren't shown ever as suffering violence they did not start. Like, we don't see wolves being marginalized at the start, we just see them tyrannising Portia right away, right? Even the lawyer who pretends to be the lone good one is an accomplice, from how i understood. I see the "pro-police" part a lot in what feels like the implied problem; the police of Endtown under Grout is shown as too weak, soft and underfunded to make the citizens feel safe. Explicitly with things like Heather not getting enough protection and the police being tied down by the law, forced to let a protest happen while their one useless policeman gets manhandled and is unable to stop the protest from escalating. Plus the whole aspect of being unable to discover and halt a society wide cannibal club.

So i feel the police of Endtown is used less a positive model of heroism but more an exposition on what is a bad police which constructs the "right policeman" by all the things it's not. And what it critiques seemed to me to be the opposite of the demands for police reform.

Even the arrest of Heather feels like a critique of the justice system being racially blind and not tough enough on the wolves, who are constantly burning things while she gets accussed non-stop. Same but worse with the press; the charge security executed him on wasn't murder but sedition, right? To me, the rats in this came of to me as the "necessary evil" which will harshly intervene with horrid but in-story justified consequences (preventing the communist-wolf-nazi takeover/riot) because the stupid animals are too soft and grexed/cardoodled/whatever to have a working brain and plan anymore and so the rats act to ensure the planet has a future or blablabla.

Even the supremacist villain Jacob suddenly acts ridiculous and ineffectual in this.

[reptileranting]

Eugh. I considered riding it out, but it feels to me my suspicions on the messaging of the comic have been proven right. It's not even funny, just bloodthirsty.

Yes, i know, it's hypocritical considering my own unhinged writing output, but at least i hope i am funny with the satire and don't pander to conspiracy theories.

[topsidetales]

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[reptileranting]

[caendtowntrash]

LMAO

[reptileranting]

Thank YOU for your excellent comic and indulging my silly questions!

[topsidetales]

Page 451 Next Page Previous Page First Page

[reptileranting]

One of the strengths of Topside Tales really is that no one is a strawman, even if it's clear they are wrong. They are where they are for a good reason, even if it's a bad place.

[caendtowntrash]

[reptileranting]

Endtown has an unaccountable, unstoppable, immoral and immortal uberbrutal police force that kills in literal truck loads and is ready to unleash medical horrors if they ever tire of playing.

Amazing this comic is trying to be pro-police.

[caendtowntrash]

It’s honestly hard to say if it IS pro-police because the Pig Arc pretty blatantly shows that Grout’s police force is incompetent and grossly compliant with Jacob’s leadership. Milk Trial made it seem like they were being cut out of policing by the rats who unapologetically were portrayed for many arcs as cruel, stupid, and violent but honestly Grout’s police is a thin step up from the alternative.

And the town policing itself is also shown as unambiguously bad given the lynching of Allgood the second he left Administration. Kind of curious why this arc didn’t start with another wolf getting lynched if the last arc was so insistent about the town fearing and hating the wolves.

I think this may be an ‘other side’ take like TT where it’s designed to humanize the villains of previous arcs…except I think unlike Topsiders who are put through a level of existential and sensory torture that wrings them out to be the way they are, the Endtown Rats are ‘cursed’ with immortality and their assigned role in Endtown itself as being thankless and endless.

There’s probably some message like ‘the proles should be grateful the rats aren’t nearly as tyrannical as they deserve to be’ because with their positions in Admin and guns they could so very easily coup the leadership and starve out the town by locking access to Admin (including the food pantries). I don’t think that’s a message anyone will be willing to buy, though.

[reptileranting]

I think the wolves aren't meant to be sympathised with and that's why they aren't shown ever as suffering violence they did not start. Like, we don't see wolves being marginalized at the start, we just see them tyrannising Portia right away, right? Even the lawyer who pretends to be the lone good one is an accomplice, from how i understood. I see the "pro-police" part a lot in what feels like the implied problem; the police of Endtown under Grout is shown as too weak, soft and underfunded to make the citizens feel safe. Explicitly with things like Heather not getting enough protection and the police being tied down by the law, forced to let a protest happen while their one useless policeman gets manhandled and is unable to stop the protest from escalating. Plus the whole aspect of being unable to discover and halt a society wide cannibal club.

So i feel the police of Endtown is used less a positive model of heroism but more an exposition on what is a bad police which constructs the "right policeman" by all the things it's not. And what it critiques seemed to me to be the opposite of the demands for police reform.

Even the arrest of Heather feels like a critique of the justice system being racially blind and not tough enough on the wolves, who are constantly burning things while she gets accussed non-stop. Same but worse with the press; the charge security executed him on wasn't murder but sedition, right? To me, the rats in this came of to me as the "necessary evil" which will harshly intervene with horrid but in-story justified consequences (preventing the communist-wolf-nazi takeover/riot) because the stupid animals are too soft and grexed/cardoodled/whatever to have a working brain and plan anymore and so the rats act to ensure the planet has a future or blablabla.

Even the supremacist villain Jacob suddenly acts ridiculous and ineffectual in this.

[caendtowntrash]

[reptileranting]

Endtown has an unaccountable, unstoppable, immoral and immortal uberbrutal police force that kills in literal truck loads and is ready to unleash medical horrors if they ever tire of playing.

Amazing this comic is trying to be pro-police.

[topsidetales]

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[reptileranting]

Calling someone a "Torturer" after electric shocks, inhuman prison conditions and, just seven panels ago, something that looked a bit like his sauropod instincts almost overwhelmed him... Joel is such a hypocritical sadist, but i still can't get enough of him.

[topsidetales]

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[reptileranting]

I find this interesting because this means (unlike the other comic's continuity) humans are still being born, right? (Unless Research lied about that part, too or didn't even try) Very excited to see where the reveals about the mutation go.

[caendtowntrash]

This lines up more with Endtown unironically showing a kid TM at the end of the Ship Arc when Marx was telling that story to the children of Endtown so more sticking with something that was originally shown than what was later retconned.

Simply put: Typhoid Maries can still exist but it’s not genetically inheritable as Clovis said, it’s entirely random. And because an expressing TM happens with such a small percentage of a population, testing twenty to fifty embryos (hell even a hundred) isn’t going to land on the lottery winner, you’d need a much larger sample size.

Apex already has been suggested as not doing the proper due of research earlier in TT with Clovis and Frankie’s argument over Amesworth Radiation (and Amesworth Sickness) and this more or less is following the trend.

[reptileranting]

You are 100% right with the kids. I was even thinking of them in regards to Aaron's in-story reader criticism. I have been meaning to ask; from what you said, you don't think highly of the multiverse stuff, right? So i presume the mutations in TT don't happen because of merging multiverses, do they? I understand if you'd rather not tell the cause for your story or if it's irrelevant for it. But I am terminally out of the loop about the wider Endtown fandom so idk if there is a prefered and more elegant explanation commonly used in fanworks, if the Endtown explanation is accepted or if it's left ambiguos as a rule of thumb.