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Thread: What's the deal with Celia?
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2019-09-06, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2015
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
This is one of my main problems with Celia (which isn't to say that I feel she was a bad, poorly written character, but rather that I think of her character as a pretty bad person and a poor "friend.") It's been said in these forums and in the strip that Celia considers Haley a friend, but she acts more like the sort of "friend" I wouldn't even bother confirming on Facebook. I think it's legitimate to form a first impression of someone based on prior bad acts.
I would even understand if you think, "All I know about this guy is that he used to steal cars for a living. It's not really worth the time and risk to give him a chance and see if there's more to him than that. However, Celia decides to "befriend" Haley superficially, while never really giving her even a sliver of a chance to show that there's more to her than Celia's initial judgment of "criminal." To me, Celia is at best a toxic friend, and at worst just sticking around using Haley as a means to an end.
And even then, Haley has the same goal, so I wouldn't judge Celia harshly if she was open with Haley and said, "I don't like or trust you, you don't have to like or trust me, but we both care about Roy and want him resurrected, and we stand a better chance working at it together." Instead, Celia keeps framing their relationship as one of friends/colleagues (which Haley goes along with because that's how she sees their relationship), but it's entirely one-sided. Celia expects all of the courtesy and consideration you should expect from a friend/colleague, but she rarely offers the same in return (which Haley goes along with because she's not a good leader/manager), and is very quick to play the whole "but you're just a criminal, why should I trust you anyway?" card.
My other issue is less with Celia and more with one of the common defenses of her conduct: That she's a fish out of water who's actually competent within her native context, and that we should be more understanding. I can't speak with how competent she is as an Outsider, but she's actually a horrible law student/lawyer (both in the sense that her legal skills aren't as good as she thinks and in her complete lack of legal ethics.) A good lawyer provides her skills and judgment to a client--she doesn't substitute her judgment for a client's.
Paradoxically, legal ethics mean that you never substitute your own ethics, values, or goals for a clients--especially not unilaterally and without their informed consent. The client sets the goals--your job is to help them find the best way to achieve them. If a client orders you to (or otherwise places you in a position where you'd be forced to) compromise your own ethics, the proper response is to end the representation--preferably in a way that minimizes the prejudice to the client's position. A lawyer should never--like Celia did--simply decide, "Screw it, I know my client would never approve of it, but here's the deal that I'm offering because it's the one that satisfies my personal sense of ethics."
This speaks more to Haley being a much better and more genuine friend/colleague to Celia than Celia ever was to her, and Haley's general decency. Even though this was an obviously Crystal-golem-shaped bad idea that jeopardized her father's freedom, it was already a done deal as far as the Guild and any outside observers were concerned, so backing out of it (probably with multiple Sneak Attacks) takes on a very different moral hue than simply refusing to make the deal to begin with.
Plus, on the short-term friends generally back their friends up in the moment, even if it's entirely the friend's fault there's trouble to begin with. With a couple of exceptions, the Order always backed Elan or Belkar when their respective stupidity or viciousness got them into trouble.
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2019-09-06, 04:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
I'd say that Celia isn't a toxic friend by any means- she just doesn't know what she's doing, and made some assumptions about how much Haley might exaggerate. They do get along well while Belkar is sick, and while she makes rash decisions that's more because Celia herself is trying to work within the world she is in more than anything else.
An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.
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2019-09-06, 04:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Heh, thinking about this some more, I bet if Celia and Roy hadn't been long distance, they might not have lasted very long a a couple. They're both stubborn and convinced they're always the smartest person in the room-- they would've driven each other nuts any time they disagreed. Roy is growing out of it, at least-- I have no idea if Celia is, since we haven't been following her and haven't seen her for two books now.
I don't think anyone has said that. I think we've said-- or I've said, in any case-- that Celia's particular faults are ones I personally find very annoying. (And, as Morgana has said, there seems to be no recognition by her or the narrative that they are in fact faults; she remains convinced of her righteousness no matter how badly she screws up.)
It does, but I'm not sure that's what's happening here, at least if we're talking Elan and Celia. They're very different-- for starters, Celia is actually intelligent. But the differences that make one lovable and one annoying speak more to their personalities: Elan, in the Giant's own words, is "a lot of fun to be around," and he clearly has a big heart and cares about the Order and his allies, even when his competence is in question. Celia's faults in the DSTP arc seem to be more of a product of high intelligence / low wisdom; more to the point, her personality is very different, much more self-righteous, and she is constantly hectoring her allies even when her allies are working to save her life.
For a more apt comparison, I think my opening comment in this post about Celia and Roy gets to the point. I have indeed found Roy extremely annoying for his tendency to assume he's smarter than everyone else and not actually listen to anybody-- to such an extreme that he won't listen to a literal representative of Heaven who has important information for him. Again, though, since we actually follow Roy as the main character of the story, we see him grow and change. Celia doesn't get that change in the narrative-- although, again, to back up Morgana here:
--even one acknowledgement from Celia after it was all over that hey, maybe she didn't know best would have gone a long way to showing a little humility and growth. Instead, we just get her continuing to complain about Haley.
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2019-09-06, 05:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Wow, looking at that strip even Roy seems REALLY dickish, Haley doesn't care more about gold than people, and she never has. This sounds extremely off character for Roy honestly, I mean, just look at how he dealt with Miko who said pretty similar things. Celia just seems to warp the comic's internal logic whenever sh's on panel, Haley might act a bit morally gray but she is heroic and does care about people's lives, and doesn't just act out of self interest, sh's Chaotic Good not Chaotic Neutral.
Like, it's just so bad to say that after she literally risked her life for both of them.Last edited by Morgana; 2019-09-06 at 05:36 PM.
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2019-09-06, 06:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2018
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
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2019-09-06, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
She literally had just risked her life to save him, and this is after the battle of azure city when Haley could have left whenever she wanted as Roy had ended her contract, but she didn't
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2019-09-06, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Also, I disagree that the strip is "long before Haley's character development." A lot of her development came during War and XPs (becoming able to admit her feelings for Elan) and DTSP (getting over her self-doubt enough to lead, even if that same self-doubt perhaps kept her from setting out from Azure City longer than it should have).
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2019-09-06, 06:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2015
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
A more minor part of Roy's character development has been how he has come to more fully like and respect his team. I think he always took his responsibilities as a leader seriously, and tearing up the contracts was an important symbolic first step in his changing attitudes, but Roy continued to judge his teammates pretty harshly for their faults for a while, even as he simultaneously gained more respect for their loyalty and (mostly) good intentions.
Also, she's his girlfriend. A lot of otherwise stand-up guys will keep their mouth shut to avoid rocking the boat. Particular if you spend the vast majority in a party (but for Haley) of the sausage variety.
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2019-09-06, 07:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Looks like the problem is not just Celia, but anyone who doesn't worships Haley at the top of an Altar. Any character in the comic that finds faults in Haley's personality and doesn't treats her as a Marie Sue is guilty of behaving off-character, being bad written, being a {scrubbed} , or being a toxic person.
Even if it is Roy, the main hero of the story, agreeing to his girlfriend that Haley values money too much, three strips after Haley didn't dismissed Roy's fears that she would be capable of betraying the mission for a 10gp bet.
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2019-09-06, 07:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2018
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Side characters? Not acknowledging that the protagonists are the center of the universe?
It's more likely than you think.
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2019-09-06, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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2019-09-06, 09:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Yeah, I agree with the second part of Pilgrim's post (and disagree with much of what Morgana wrote), but arguing that saying that what Celia said didn't apply to Haley (which at that point is pretty true, she's mostly developed past that, though I can definitely say that Haley cares more about gold than the existence of almost all of the people she killed there, and Roy sort of agreeing with Celia is a bit weird) is the same as being mad at anyone for not treating Haley as a Mary Sue is a huuuuge misrepresentation of every single person who I've ever seen argue over Celia.
Last edited by Peelee; 2019-09-06 at 10:06 PM.
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2019-09-06, 10:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Like, you surely understand that this was a joke between 2 party members, and that Haley would not actually doom the world for 10 gp she probably wouldn't even be able to spend in account of them all being erased from existence
Last edited by Morgana; 2019-09-06 at 10:30 PM.
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2019-09-06, 10:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
You know what? You are correct there, but what it does show is that Haley is very greedy, a well established apart of her personality (she gets rashes at losing money), and its extreme enough that you can joke about it, and well, she doesn't value the lives of many of the people she killed or would have killed and didn't intend to raise them, that's sort of the context there, she would rather keep her money than raise most of the people she killed, and Roy has several good reasons to not debate Celia on Haley's exact morality.
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2019-09-06, 10:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
She didn't wanted to use her money cause they are a criminal organization that runs a whole city, and were actively trying to kill her and have very little reason to not attempt to do so again. Keep in mind that the gold an adventurer makes is more than the treasury of a lot of nations, so giving that much gold to a crime syndicate is an incredibly bad idea, especially cause considering most of those people were low-level they had very little incentive in actually using the gold to ressurect them
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2019-09-06, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Another sign of Celia's naivete, and kind of a baffling one. She thinks Haley isn't trustworthy, but the Thieves' Guild is? The same one that sent a couple of dozen people to try to kill the two of them minutes ago? The one with the leader who has made it his mission to kill Haley and who has a highly competent assassin as his sidekick? I mean, even if she didn't know any of the details, they're a Thieves' Guild.
Anyway, I think the salient point re: #669 is that Haley just put her life at risk for Celia and Roy, and they're still talking about her badly. It is odd for Celia to complain that Haley simply likes violence for being the more convenient option, immediately after an incident where her use of violence was directly in service of saving their lives.
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2019-09-06, 11:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
I don't think the implication of that strip was that she was objecting to Celia facilitating the resurrection of criminals (in fact avoiding the resulting power vacuum was one of her objectives) and there was no hint that she thought the money wouldn't be used for that end. Rather, I think the implication was that she objected her money being used in that way.
Anyway, even if you are right, it would not have been unreasonable for Celia to interpret the situation of Hayley preferring to keep her money in her pocket rather than using it to raise the guild members.
I don't think Celia was dickish in the strip Ruck linked to (669) at all. She has a different moral perspective to Hayley (no comment from me on which is better) and I don't think there's anything wrong with her expressing that. And Roy did nothing wrong at all - he actually defended Hayley earlier in the strip.
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2019-09-06, 11:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2019
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
She made an assesment of Haley's morals, which were incorrect as Haley has shown to care about people's lives, even more than money considering she at that point had helped tons of people with nothing to gain from it, and a lot to lose. Also Haley isn't naive, why would she believe the thieves' guild would ever play fair? One of her most well estabilished skills is realizing when there's a con and deceit, besides that she knew these people for a big part of her life, and anyone with half a brain would know not to make a deal with a guild of evil aligned criminals
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2019-09-06, 11:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Taken by itself, it's not a big deal. She's just been through a harrowing experience, she hasn't seen Roy in a long time, she needed to get some things off her chest. It's just when taken in the context of the rest of her behavior in this arc that it kinda reads as, geez, she won't give Haley a break or the benefit of the doubt for even a moment.
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2019-09-07, 12:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2018
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
It's not like Haley didn't talk badly about Celia a bunch as well, when Celia was the one who actually put the whole resurrecting Roy thing in motion and was critical in getting the whole situation resolved even though she did screw up by not asking for a resurrection spell. This is just another case of "things are fine when protagonists do them but terrible when side characters do them," and it's fine if people feel that way but I wish people would just admit that it's because of which characters are doing it and not some objective standard.
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2019-09-07, 12:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2018
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
It's been awhile since I've read those strips but I did get the impression that Celia was (at least partially) intentionally annoying (for comedy's sake, if nothing else) but that she was also meant to have a valid point at least regarding Haley's morality, or lack thereof, to a degree. And I can't really fault her for that.
The naivete did get a bit too frustrating after a certain point, but I do think certain people here are playing it up, and absolving Haley too much of the whole situation. But, again, it's been awhile since I've read the material.I'd just like to point out that saying that something unsupported is the case unless someone else can prove that it is not is an utter failure of logic. - Kish
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2019-09-07, 12:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
And yet, she doesn't try and back out of the deal, and she doesn't raise any concerns about it being a con. And for all the times she has helped people (which really isn't that often), there are many more times of her wanting money or hating to lose money or just being generally greedy.
Spoiler: I'm a writer!Spoiler: Check out my fanfiction[URL="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7493788/Forum-Explorer"here[/URL]
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2019-09-07, 12:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
I mean, expect recognizing they were trying to kill her, and getting the drop on them first and declaring she was never going to pay them a cent.
Bolded is a pretty big elision, in my opinion. If that's all you think Celia did wrong, we're not likely to see eye-to-eye on this.
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2019-09-07, 02:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
I had always thought that Celia was just a "normal person" stand-in. Making the best decisions she could based on normal-people assumptions about life and in a situation she wasn't entirely equipped to understand. It was a perfect counterpoint to someone unwilling to take responsibility for their decisions and not wanting to share crucial information with others. Almost as if Celia's flaws were complementary to and highlighted Haley's flaws.
Come to think of it, what's the deal with Haley in that time period? In that arc she murders a helpless person, encourages the murder of other unarmed people and thoughtlessly litters.
Actually, Haley not deciding to leave the Cloister was pretty dumb too. I'm always suspicious of unknown abjuration fields when I notice them, so she should've been too. At the very least, I go brush my teeth.I write a horror blog in my spare time.
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2019-09-07, 03:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Do you mean except? Cause she does say again, which kinda implies that she did pay some. In 974, Bozzak even says he uses the money he got from Haley to turn Crystal into a half-golem, the money that was meant for the raise dead spells.
So yeah, Haley actually stuck to the deal, until she killed Crystal. You are right that Bozzak was always going to betray her, but that's evidence that she shouldn't have accepted the deal in the first place. A deal, I would remind you, that Haley was perfectly fine with until she discovered how much money it was going to cost her.Spoiler: I'm a writer!Spoiler: Check out my fanfiction[URL="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7493788/Forum-Explorer"here[/URL]
]Fate Stay Nano: Fate Stay Night x Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
I Fell in Love with a Storm: MLP
Procrastination: MLP
Spoiler: Original FictionThe Lost Dragon: A story about a priest who finds a baby dragon in his church and decides to protect them.
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2019-09-07, 03:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Helping people with nothing to gain from it does not mean she cares about people more than money. Helping people at great personal financial cost might.
From the comic you could certainly argue it either way. We've discussed her horror at having to pay out for the thieve guild resurrections. One could also point ot the fact that she suffered some sort of breakdown when she lost her fortune, but did not seem to be in as much distress when people around her died (even her friends). You're probably right that there are signs pointing the other way as well. But I don't think Celia's assessment was unfair.
Also Haley isn't naive, why would she believe the thieves' guild would ever play fair? One of her most well estabilished skills is realizing when there's a con and deceit, besides that she knew these people for a big part of her life, and anyone with half a brain would know not to make a deal with a guild of evil aligned criminals
Leave out the harrowing experience, give her some time to consider what she wants to say, and make it a comment she makes to Roy after having spent considerable time with him - I still don't read anything wrong with her saying it (or saying it several times, if that's the context you're referring to).
You may find her overly moralistic perspective (at least relative to the setting) annoying (i prefer the gray characters like Hayley and Belkar myself), but I don't think she's being wholly unfair to Hayley.
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2019-09-07, 04:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
Roy's face at that strip is not that of someone joking. It was the face of someone realizing "you are so greedy that I'm sure the thought of sabotaging the mission for 10gp has crossed your mind". And Haley's reaction shows that Roy was right.
Of course Roy doesn't thinks Haley will betray him for 10gp. Otherwise he wouldn't keep her in his party. That doesn't changes the fact that his first impression on Haley was that she was just an extremely greedy thief. And, even though he knows her better now, he still thinks "values money too much" is one of Haley's character traits.
If we move to other good-aligned members of the party, Durkon sucessfully convinced Haley to remain as Miko's prisoner by appealing to her greed. And even Elan tends to backpedal with haste when the money issue arises with Haley.
"Extremey greedy thief" is a common first impression Haley gives to people, not just Celia. Because it's one of her main character flaws.
She doesn't wants to use her money because:
1) She is greedy.
2) She needs it to pay her father's ramson.
3) She is greedy.
And that's about it. "Giving money to a criminal organization" was not a factor in her thought process.
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2019-09-07, 04:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-07, 04:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-07, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What's the deal with Celia?
An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.
See my extended signature here! May contain wit, candor, and somewhere from 52 to 8127 walruses.
Purple is humorous descriptions made up on the fly
Green is serious talk about hypothetical
Blue is irony and sarcasm
"I think, therefore I am,
I walk, therefore I stand,
I sleep, therefore I dream;
I joke, therefore I meme."
-Squire Doodad