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Thread: I dont agree with Rich.
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2008-06-04, 01:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Thanks, Trazoi.
As for characters sparking disagreement, check out this old thread I ran across a few minutes ago. http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelec...5&threadid=729
The thread title is "Who's the best female literary character of all time?"
There are a lot of disagreement-sparking failures listed there. Jane Eyre and Emma Bovary provoked some venom, for example. And there's a big long debate over whether or not it's creepy to include Lolita.
Personally, I'm leaning toward voting for Willow Rosenberg.
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2008-06-04, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
So you are saying that Miko was our author's best character, and probably only good one?
You seem to be confused about two different definitions of controversial here.
In a sexually repressed society, making the heroine a slut, and a figure to sympathize with, would be controversial. Her meaning in the story is quite clear, and agreed upon. She is a statement that a bad girl is not necessarily a bad girl, which much of society disagrees with.
Miko is not controversial in this sense, because we don't even agree on what she is saying, or how it is being said. That is where much of our controversy about her is mired.
You may also be confusing cause and effect. People argue over everything, particularly the things that interest them. So the good character that attracts our attention also attracts our arguments. These arguments are not the result of being a good character, but of people being people.
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2008-06-04, 08:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
If I were to assert that trolling is posting too much on a thread and when you responded with "no it isn't" would you require me to show where that definition came from?
Because unless I give where this definition comes from, no matter what you say about what "trolling" means, I can just say "that's just one definition, this is another".
We need you to show why your definition of failure is correct. Citation, it's called.
Or will you stop posting because you're trolling (as in posting too much on this thread)?
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2008-06-04, 08:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
The writer DID NOT WANT TO CHANGE it.
Difference.
Came up with an idea (I wonder if I can get some action between these two) and the result (nah, too rude for a webcomic that children read) then predicated a new idea (drop this, it isn't central and just makes problems when Miko turns psyco as I already wanted her to).
When you go into town and you decide to walk a different way into town, have you failed in your task of getting into town? No, because you now have got into town. The route wasn't the aim, the destination was.
Rich's aim was for Miko to go more and more psychotic to the aim of having her kill Shojo. And rather than get a romance going, didn't. However, Miko STILL managed to go psycho and did still kill Shojo. The aim was still fulfilled.
If a romance had gone on, it would, at that point, have to have stopped. So the path wasn't germain to the aim of this character.
No matter how much you deny being wrong, you are.
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2008-06-04, 04:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Providing supporting information is routinely a good idea.
Which reminds me. What is your definition of a failed character?
Which seems to be a reason why you should supply that definition.
That's called trying to prove a negative. It is simply much easier to prove a definition is wrong, which is what you assert, and thus need to prove.
A citation, by the way, is only one of many ways to attempt to prove something, and by no means the best. It can have the advantage of being quick and easy, but at best it borders on argument from authority, when it is not blatently guilty of that fallacy.
I would respond by noting the standard definitions of trolling are like "Posting derogatory messages about sensitive subjects on newsgroups and chat rooms to bait users into responding."
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_te...i=53181,00.asp that other definitions are similar, and they do not mention the number of posts.
And I am expecting the same from you, that you explain what is wrong with my definition and/or supply an alternate definition.
So what is your definition of a failed character?
and then he changed it. That seems a default case for failure. How serious a failure is not so clear, but flatly a failure.
Now you seem to dodge the basic definition of failure here. You decide. it seems a matter of indifference which way you go. But failure involves difficulty. You want to do A, but can't. If you can get to town by either A or B, you can't fail. But when you can't get to town by A [which you prefer] and must use B, we have failure. It is a minor failure in terms of the larger goal of getting to town at all, but it is still failure.
Now on the small scale, our writer wanted to get a romance going, and failed to manage it. It's not a matter of merely didn't. It's a mountain climber who only got halfway before turning back. That he intended only a very brief romance has no bearing here, just as we are not really concerned with whether the mountail climber was 500 feet up a thousand foot climb or 5000 feet up a 10,000 foot climb. Both failed.
Nor was our author's aim "for Miko to go more and more psychotic to the aim of having her kill Shojo." That is merely what happened. It is hard to know his precise aim [which is part of the reason to deem the character a failure], but part of it was to explain why she did, to make it seem "reasonable" [We can easily disagree with the action, but even when we are surprised by it, we are not surprised enough to say "this would never happen"].
The author is also trying to form our attitude towards Miko. Was her death tragic? or a tragedy it didn't happen sooner? It seems clear enough that the writer wants her to be tragic, but a quite large percentage of the audience didn't see it that way. Here again we see character failure since many people did not get the message.
It might have been a convenient point to stop it, but the hero helping his lover-assassin escape would have been a possible alternative.
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2008-06-05, 02:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
So please provide supporting information for your definition.
Or stop trolling.
(Please note that I have given my definition of what counts as failed in my original response.)
PS: OFFS
"Nor was our author's aim "for Miko to go more and more psychotic to the aim of having her kill Shojo." "
And I quote from the person who writes the freaking comic:
"Miko, and only Miko, was intended to kill Shojo, fall from grace, and ultimately destroy the Azurite gate."
Looks like she's gonna kill Shojo to me.Last edited by Eric; 2008-06-05 at 02:14 AM.
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2008-06-05, 02:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
I think one of us is misinterpreting Eric, because I thought he meant Rich didn't want to change it as in he didn't want to change the harsher version of Miko back to the boring version. Because he certainly could have. "Oh, I'm sorry I spoke that way to you and your companions. I was in a bad mood, because..." insert excuse here. "I'm afraid you're not seeing me at my best." Simple. Changed. Anyway, Eric, please clarify if I'm misunderstanding you.
To paraphrase the deva, helping your lover-assassin escape rightful justice is not an act that screams "Lawful."
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2008-06-05, 07:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
That's not wrong.
However, you're still taking as read Argyl's uncited contention that having a draft character dialogue seem incorrect and changing it for something else is any definition of "failure".
LoTR was rewritten dozens of times in a major way. Is it a failure? ALL movies have sections taken out or redone in post. Are they ALL failures? Any definition that would have everything fit under it is not a definition.
And it still remains merely his definition because it has no citation. A definition that only he thinks is right. Occam's razor comes in and says that the simplest solution is that he's wrong.
Unfortunately, Argyl loves to troll.
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2008-06-05, 07:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
I'd definitely say she was his best character. She embodied the tragic hero, and added completly new tone to the previously light-hearted story.
But she's not the only good one. Basing just off of what I said, every other character has had debate about them.
But please, let's not argue definitions. That just wastes everybody's time.Thanks Uncle Festy for the wonderful Ashling Avatar
I make music
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2008-06-05, 03:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
A failed character is, almost tautologically, a character who fails to get the writer's message to the reader. This of course means that the character's success or failure within the story has no definite connection to its success or failure as part of the story. In a tale of the punishment crime, the criminal must fail to succeed.
Rather, the success is to be measured by how well and convincingly the character conveys the message to the audience. The character can fail in any of a number of ways. It can be off- or anti- message. It can be unconvincing [tho since most speakers have limited success in convincing their audience, convincing is often defined as the view the author is pushing is not rejected out of hand].
Since I fail to find there what you are calling a definition here, I will note that it will be no problem for you to repeat that "definition".
Quite true. She was going to kill Shojo, but that is not the aim here. That is simply what was going to happen. The writer's aim is to explain why she did it. We might say that Miko goes more and more psychotic with the aim of explaining to us why she kills Shojo.
Originally Posted by SeleneSpoiler"Whenever I wrote her lines of dialogue, they came out far ruder and harsher than I had expected... There was no way to undo some of her rudeness from previous strips..." So no, it was not a matter of want, but of being "forced" to.
[I'm still cheap enough to regret buying the book for just the additions and author comments, but I have to admit I am getting quite a lot of use of that.]
Originally Posted by Selene
More seriously, this sort of thing comes at a cost. You are more or less saying to the reader "ignore the last X pages" which is a failure in itself. Then it seems questionable that he could have managed it. He had already failed to capture Miko as he had wanted to. Why should he think he could do better on the second try?
Then you are detracting from the character. Miko is not meant to be flexible. Quite the contrary, she is very unbending. She would be a much different Miko if she could apologize for anything. Our writer failed to get the Miko he wanted, but he was wise to abandon that goal and work well with the Miko he got.
Originally Posted by Selene
Originally Posted by Flame Master Axel
In other cases we may find one or both are wrong, but again, without the definitions, we really don't know what they are claiming, and can't tell who, if either, is right or wrong.
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2008-06-05, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Tautologically, a failed character is one that failed. So your use of big words not confuse me.
Now you say here now that a failed character is one that failed to get the writers message to the reader.
Well Roy and Miko Bumping Uglies (sorry, Smiting Evil) wasn't Rich's message to the reader. It was always about how would the Azure City gate fail to end the story early. Rich has stated that time and again this was Miko's requirement. It's reason for being written.
See, now we have your definition laid down, we can dissect what you mean.
If any personal message was meant it was how badly a munchin mindset could kill a paladin as it's definition of "Righteous Warrior For Good". O'Chul seems so far to be purely to show how a paladin played with sensitivity can produce what I think everyone can agree is the epitome of Paladin.
If your maintennance that Miko's requirement was to give the Hero a Love Interest (damn, that's gotta be a trope), in what way would there be any "message" for her character to deliver? If she was only for that, there would be no message, no way to impart that message and therefore, by this new, nailed-down definition must necessarily fail. Even if written for that trope perfectly.
I think early one one of the others pointed out the shallowness of "Miko/Roy love interest" and it's been attempted to be driven through your thick skull a couple of times since then. It didn't seem to work.
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2008-06-05, 06:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
I do agree with Rich
*waits to be jumped on by people arguing that OOTs is as good as Moore*
*realises that the thread has got so far off topic that no-one actually cares about the original debate anymore*
Oh yeah, Miko isn't a failed character. She plays her role in the plot. It's a writer's prerogative to do whatever they like with a character. And it looks like Rich started out with a plan for Miko. And frankly she does it pretty darn well!
Now I'm going to get killed....
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2008-06-05, 11:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
True, in the sense that Roy wasn't supposed to succeed.
False in the sense that his attempt and failure wasn't intended to be part of the picture of Miko
There were a kazillion ways to do that, O-Chul being the most obvious. Destroying the Gate is merely something Miko does. Her theme is more why she did.
He has said, once I believe, that she was put down to kill Shojo and destroy the Gate from the start. But this is not the theme of Miko. We might consider that to be how she came to do those actions.
That reminds me. Where is your definition?
"Munchkin" is hardly the term to apply to Miko. In terms of sheer power, Roy beats her up. In terms of known feats and abilities, she seems to have several that are subpar.
Now if we accept your use of the term as just a flawed attempt to insult that undermines your argument, the statement is not too far off. Our writer has a bias against paladins that roleplay like paladins should. So we can accept Miko as a possible attempt to attack that style of play.
However, the presence of one theme to a character does not mean there are not others. The more complexity that is attempted the more chance of failure of course, but such characters are preferred as more real among other things. Here the descent into madness is a related, but different, theme.
You are confusing here the requirement with a requirement. Miko can have a love scene without necessarily interfering with other duties.
However the abandonment of the love scene was largely merely indicative of the character failure. Miko was turning out too harsh for the love scene, and for her role in general.
We look at 464. Miko is supposed to be one of the good guys, someone to feel sorry for. [We have her asking a silly question about her horse, a good line for evoking sympathy for her, but up until then we have no evidence she thought her horse was anything but a tool. {A quite valuable one, and she regarded herself as no more than a tool too, but there is no sign of a personal relationship.} The presence of the line is rather a shout-out that the author has done poorly in explaining the character to us, and must rely on cheap emotion to get the desired response.] But a large number of people are just not able to see her as such. Something was wrong with the character and it extends back to the early 200s.
So who says she was only for that?
Am I correct in translating this as "I think every one of the others..." This would seem to be incorrect, but at least it makes sense.
So?
Even if we assume this to be true, it does not prevent it from being potential comedy gold. Nor does it seem to cause any other problems.
Originally Posted by katkin
Originally Posted by katkin
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2008-06-06, 12:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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2008-06-06, 01:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Yikes! Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression that I agree with his definition. Revision and re-imagining are very important tools for any writer. I'm a Constant Reader of Stephen King, and I'm very familiar with his idea that the characters tell the story and the author is just along for the ride. Also I just finished reading Tolkien's Unfinished Tales and both Lost Tales books, coincidentally. They made me decide I needed to re-read The Silmarillion for comparison, so that's what I'm reading now.
I bet the deva would disagree with you there. Leaving Elan = not lawful, and not all that good. More like petty and spiteful. And Roy, being a lawful good person, realized this, was horrified at his behavior, and went back for him.
"I went to Fighter College because I wanted to help people. To protect the weak and -- The weak. Oh, gods. Elan!" -Roy
Hinjo was actually the one who stopped her from killing Belkar, if you mean just after she fell. And I don't see where the deva spoke to Roy about it. But anyway, standing aside while one person kills another = not lawful, and definitely not good.
"Because we have the rule of law in this city, and the rule of law says that you don't get to kill people because they happen to do something wrong." -Hinjo
Helping a regicide to escape justice is unlikely to be good, and is definitely not lawful. Roy got into the lawful good afterlife, because he's been *trying* to be lawful good all along. There is just no way he could claim that if he ran off with his fallen paladin murderess girlfriend, with whose actions he did not agree.
"All that matters to me right now is that you just killed the only other person who was actively trying to fix this stupid end-of-the-world thing." -Roy
So yes, since Roy always tries to do the lawful thing, it would have been totally out of character to help Miko escape.
Also, all paladins should be just played just like O-Chul. Because he's awesome like that.
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2008-06-06, 02:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
The deva might or might not agree with me. She just wouldn't consider my point at all important.
The problem is that you are missing the point of my argument. We are not asking here "What is the LG thing to do in this situation?" Rather we are asking "What action would show loyalty to friends and companions?" Whether it was good, lawful, or any combination of any alignments is simply not to the point.
We are positing a situation where Roy has managed to maintain/create good relations with Miko. [To keep close to the actual story, we might assume they break up and make up several times.] Now we come to the death of Shojo and we ask what would a Roy who really wants to help and protect his friends, even ones who don't deserve that help, do? Given his willingness to rescue Belkar from a richly deserved death, it would seem such a Roy might well go to Miko's assistance [tho it might be harder to decide if he would merely try to make sure she had a good lawyer or would slice and dice any who got in the way of her escape].
I didn't. Miko was also trying to kill Belkar just after the trial.
The deva spoke to Roy about some unknown number of things off camera. So we can draw few conclusions from anything that is not mentioned.
But no, he doesn't. Breaking jail was not lawful. Roy makes no appeal to lawful standards in rescuing Belkar... The Deva says Roy is very marginally lawful, indeed probably NG except that he tries to be LG.
In the actual story, yes, because he had rejected her as a member of the party. But we are discussing here a situation where he would likely consider her a member of the party [tho the rest of the party might disagree].
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2008-06-06, 02:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Argyll, you're wrong.
You are the only person who thinks that the reason for Miko was to be a love interest for Roy (Celia has managed that anyway, and her inclusion in the Haley half of the OOTS seems to be a much better dynamic because she's not an adventurer and she gives a "real life" view on the apparent immorality of D&D adventurer life).
If you're the ONLY person with a thought, that may not be wrong. However, you are projecting that thought onto the author. There is where "wrong" comes in. You are telling Rich what he thinks and what his aims were. Rich knows and it's not a matter of opinion, because it's not your opinion, it's Rich.
The entire aim for the character was to kill Shojo. Just like the aim is to get to the shops. The path doesn't matter: you don't fail because you went a different way and your character didn't fail because you decided not to take the story a particular way.
Why do you insist that she's a failure?
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2008-06-06, 12:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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2008-06-06, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
Hey guys, what's going on i- *steamrolled by walls 'o text*
Cleric!In all things endure. In enduring, grow strong.
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2008-06-06, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
You are confusing "a" and "the" here. Miko had several purposes in the text, one of which was to be a love interest for Roy. And that she was to a very limited extent. She would have been more of one, but our writer found he was failing at that and so cut it short.
You are mixing apples and oranges here. We can get Celia into the Haley party any number of ways. The romance provided a nice hook, but there were nice alternatives, and her utility on the trip is thus not a benefit of the romance. We largely have to compare romance with romance, and we do not mark the Roy-Celia romance as a prime part of the strip. It of course is hard to compare with the merely possible, but Miko-Roy could have been a howling laugh and a superiority to Roy-Celia seems rather a given.
Now you might explain where and how I have done this. As far as I can tell, you have not shown where I have contradicted the writer on his personal thoughts.
However projecting thoughts onto others is a routine part of life. Any time we look at a character in fiction, we start projecting thoughts, just as we do when we meet people. We say people are lying, and may add whether that is a conscious or unconscious. This requires we project thoughts. We don't have to to say they are incorrect, but lie involves their thoughts and requires we project thoughts.
We see a boy looking at a girl, and start projecting thoughts, which may lead to hostile action if we suspect the boy to be straying. We talk to a salesman, and if we are wise, we project the thought that he is trying to con us. We ... project thoughts constantly and routinely.
You need to show where I have done this incorrectly. We all project thoughts about the writer on a routine basis, so when am I doing so incorrectly?
She did that in one strip. So why are there 60 or so leading up to that?
She didn't have that as a mission in strip 200, or even at 400. Asked any time during that period about the possibility she might kill Shojo and she would have rejected the idea out of hand. So what is she doing showing up so often in these strips? We could have just had her appear when she kills Shojo if that is her entire purpose.
The obvious answer is that killing Shojo is not her entire aim, or even close to it. Rather the aim is to explain why she killed Shojo and to say why it was/was not justified. [Nor can we call that her entire aim. She served several other aims along the way, including getting the party to Azure City, and being a temporary love interest for Roy.]
It doesn't necessarily fail, but it can fail for that reason among many others.
The essential point seems to be that she is not [sufficiently] a sympathetic character and she is intended to.
The presence of all the yelling is a sign something is wrong. As has been noted, Xykon goes around leveling cities, and he doesn't get near the same criticism.
Now it has been noted that good characters are often the center of disputes, but in these cases, the character came first, often years first since the dispute often shows up first in scholarly journals. Ignoring cases such as where she comes out of the show saying "He's dreamy" and he says "He's gay." [and where they are in fact agreeing about the character], the dispute doesn't start untill well after the event. By contrast, the hate Miko campaign started early, not with her naming, but not long after. We are simply not in agreement on how to view her, in contrast to just about every other character in the story. Her message is not getting thru.
Oh yes, if you think my definition of failed character is wrong, what is your definition?Last edited by David Argall; 2008-06-06 at 04:06 PM.
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2008-06-06, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
YOU think she HAD to have been more of a love interest. YOU think she wasn't sufficiently sympathetic a character. YOU think that her reason for existing was to be Roy's girl.
The AUTHOR says her reason for existing is to go ape and kill Shojo. The AUTHOR says that the only romance that was intended was for Roy to show his myscogynistic side and fail to bump uglies with Miko. The AUTHOR says that she was the epitome of a BADLY PLAYED PALADIN.
Since it is the AUTHOR who creates the intent of a character, and your newly nailed down definition of a failed character is one that doesn't fulfill the reqirements intended for the character, such requirements are defined BY that author, NOT by a single member of his audience. And on that basis of intent, and with your definition of "failed" Miko did not fail. She succeeded:
1) Butt of Roy's bd attempt to pull her
2) Rebuffed Roy's clumsy and inproper advances
3) Goes and kills Shojo
4) Gets to killing Shojo in a manner that progresses naturally from the character
Succeeded on 1, 2, 3 and 4.
YOU think it was
1) Be Roy's Girlfriend
You know what? You aren't the author.
If you think that is what should have happened, write your own story. But you'd better not change your mind about where you're goingpart way through, or you've failed
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2008-06-06, 09:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I dont agree with Rich.
This thread has been wildly off-topic for several pages.
The above words represent the consensus of the entire Giant in the Playground staff, including the moderators, the webmaster, and Rich Burlew.
(The PM box for this account is not regularly monitored; please direct any PMs to the forum staff to Roland St. Jude, the forum guru. Do send moderator applications to this account, though, as directed in the announcement thread. Thank you.)