Effulgence Fandom Ideas

[Kappa]

I found it suffered from a lack of... sense. I have a lot of trouble visually parsing complex scenes in black-and-white, especially if there's no or little text, so maybe some of the information I didn't catch was in those parts, but I think some of it just wasn't there; I spent a lot of time going "Who is this person? Why is this happening? What is this? Where did that plot thread go? How does that even work?"

[Tamien]

Hmmm. I read it a while ago, but I do not remember having those difficulties or confusions, so I guess I was either more or less observant than you were? Though... I was reading the story as it came out, and I have a very strong tendency to mentally fill in gaps in the things I'm reading such that they make sense, and then remember them as though the plugs I put in the plot-holes were actually there in canon. So it's distinctly possible that even if I *did* notice those issues at the time, I mentally glossed over them and then forgot about it in the decade since.

[Kappa]

That seems like the likeliest explanation. Specifically, I think the thing it tended to do most often was either introduce new characters with not quite enough context for me to figure out who they were and why I should care, or skip over large periods of time in a way that left me with very little idea of what happened in the interim. (Also I have trouble telling some of the characters apart or recognizing them when they show up again after an absence.)

[Tamien]

Yeah, the artistic style is definitely a big stumbling block - the panels ary tiny and busy and stark black and white is not used well - and I've heard similar complaints about comics I enjoy from other people I've recommended them to. I think I'm unusually willing to pay attention to an unfamiliar character with insufficient introductory context (who may or may not be a previously established character I just don't recognize yet) and good at parsing poor visual design and working with what cues I can get. I usually don't have all that much trouble recognizing characters within a few panels of them reappearing after an absence (even if there's been art evolution since they last appeared). Which is funny, since I'm really bad at recognizing real people in movies and, well, real life...

Actually, in general I'm pretty willing to work with frustratingly insufficient context in order to deduce meaning. I think it's because my hearing isn't great and neither is my attention, so I spend a lot of time figuring things out with impoverished context. So you are probably right that the comic included lots of large, confusing contextual jumps. That is kindof my whole life so it is not something I find terribly jarring :P

[Kappa]

Ahaha <3

Yeah, like... there was this one scene where apparently somebody stabbed a bunch of children? But I never understood why, or where he went afterward, or what... happened... like at all. To the point where at first when his partner/husband(?) started talking to him about how he'd just stabbed a bunch of children, I thought we'd abruptly entered some kind of flashback sequence. And then Husband was on the roof of the flying thing for a while? But then he was clinging to a pole sticking out a window with Child Stabber hanging off his foot? But then he was back on the roof of the flying thing like he'd never left? And during the pole hanging scene, Child Stabber made some guy swear a solemn oath to be a good person from that point forward, then fell into the void? I understood very little of that whole plotline.

[Tamien]

Okay, I went back and found the part you're talking about. Without rereading the whole thing again, here's what I think was going on:

Yasui: The guy who stabbed the kids. He's got a vendetta against Zuzux and Texto.
Millian: Yasui's husband.
Zuzux: A psychopath who enjoys torturing children. Chief Engineer of the Arc.
Texto: Zuzux's partner. Also a psychopath who enjoys torturing children, but one who is extremely duty-bound and always keeps his word.
Dachi: The Arc's chief of Security.
Thilia: Acting Captain of the Arc.

Yasui and Millian are trying to board the Arc, but Zuzux points out to Millian that due to weight limits, if they board they will be condemning several infants to die and hindering the re-establishment of humanity on a new world disc. This stops Millian, but Yasui flies into a sort of berserker rage and kills Zuzux along with six of the children. Millian stops him but is injured in the process (Yasui stabs him in the gut). This brings Yasui back to his senses, at which point he leaves Millian on the deck of the Arc and joins Dachi in fending off the mob that's threatening to prevent it from taking off. Once the arc is in the air, Dachi manages to grab on to a pole, and Yasui clings onto her, while Texto speaks with Millian. Dachi yells at Yasui to let go and calls for help. Millian hears and wants to save Yasui, but is too badly injured and keeps fading in and out of lucidity (including at one point hallucinating that Texto is actually Yasui). Texto goes with Thilia to observe Dachi and Yasui. Thilia says that Yasui needs to be gotten rid of to save Dachi and prevent her from damaging the mechanism she's hanging on to. She tells Texto to do something, so Texto reaches down to Dachi, concealing a spring-loaded poison-dart-thing. He tells Dachi to grab his hand, but she can't because her hands are numb. Yasui swings around and grabs Texto's arm with his foot, triggering the spring mechanism on the weird concealed weapon thing and causing it to go off. The dart stabs Yasui in the foot. Dachi remembers that while they were fending off the mob, Yasui warned her against Texto, and loops the cable of the weapon around Texto's neck, choking him. Yasui realizes that the dart was poisoned, and that in his final moments he can either kill Texto (and thus finish his vendetta) or do something more productive. Knowing Texto never breaks his word, he extracts three promises from him: to take care of Dachi's daughters, to take care of Millian, and actually be a good person for the rest of his life. Texto agrees because he believes Yasui is as psychopathic and oath-bound as he is, is toying with him, and will kill him very shortly. Instead of killing Texto, Yasui lets go of Dachi and falls to his death.

Hopefully that helps explain things? (And as much as I like trying to render confusing things more understandable, I feel like we are perhaps derailing the thread a bit?)

[Bluelantern]

Or just a secret project that grabs people and empowers them and stores them somewhere in stasis rather than using time travel shenanigans. XD And no, I don't mind spoilers.

This sort of doesnt make sense and it is "boring"? I mean, it would be more fun if the Bells arent the only ones that have interdimensional shenanigans xD

[Tamien]

Hmm... the world may not be fleshed out enough to lift the canon wholesale, but it maybe the game Loom would be useful for setting inspiration?

[Alicorn]

I am unfamiliar.

[Tamien]

It's an old point and click adventure that uses music-based magic spells to solve puzzles. It takes maybe a couple hours to play, tops. Also, if you don't want to bother playing but are curious to know more, there are videos of playthroughs up on youtube (here's one that includes the voice acting but is split up into segments; here's one without the voice acting that's all in one video) and a pretty good synopsis on wikipedia.

The part that I thought might be fun to use is that the population of the world of Loom has organized itself into hyper-specialized city-states based on the Great Guilds. Each city-state houses one Guild and everyone there works a related profession (and has thematic names and lives in thematic buildings and wears thematic clothes). The Guilds guard their trade secrets jealously and it's forbidden for outsiders to practice any trade governed by a Guild (which is probably all of them). The Guilds are so good at their trades as to be able to work magic through them - Weavers can make tents that are larger inside than out, can use magical distaffs to weave the fabric of reality, and can do even bigger magic with the titular Loom, while Glassmakers can make crystal balls that let you see the future, magic bells that let you teleport from one to the other, and magic weaponry sharp enough to cut the fabric of reality. Other guilds that are shown to exist but not gone into much in the game are the Shepherds and Blacksmiths (there were originally going to be sequels expanding on them, but those did not happen for various reasons). It is unspecified whether other Guilds exist but I assume they do.

I basically bring this up because every time I see the name "Clarity Bell", it makes me think of the guild of Glassmakers. And when I started actually thinking about that, I realized that a Joker could slot nicely into the role of Bobbin Threadbare (the game's protagonist). The Bell would probably replace Master Goodmold (the head Glassmaker) and take on a larger story role than he had. Rusty (of the Blacksmiths) could be a Tony and... maybe Fleece (of the Shepherds) could be a Libby? I haven't thought it through much more than that, and I'm not sure how much of the story/setting would actually be useable, but it seemed worth suggesting.