>Christmas in Endtown Soon™.

>>6679209
I think this shows some of the mistakes Aaron made, and it echoes some of the problems I have already voiced on /co/. My problem was, partly, about not getting to see stuff from Holly's perspective. It dulled the edge the narrative could have had. I've kind of zoned out after Unity in general. Because the entire Unity arc was a heavy hitter, in emotional terms. Holly going crazy after that was neither weird, nor disturbing. I'd expect that of a normie like Holly. Perhaps I waved away some of the signs because "it's a comic", and Aaron definitely triggers that with stuff like the names of Holly and Wally. I never considered that she'd been married, either, because "Holly Hollister" is too perfect a comic-y name that was never commented on. The first thing I thought when I read it was "what cruel parents would do that to their child". Of course, Wally's parents did the same thing, so I never questioned it.

And there's Aaron's obvious like towards Kirbee. I don't like Kirbee. I don't hate her. And before some waifu fag rushes to the defense of his cartoon lizard waifu, I'm not a waifu fag and waifu faggotry can go die a quiet death. Someone on /co/ already pointed out that she's already filling up with more womanly forms recently. Is that Aaron subconsciously pulling a Flask on Kirbee? Quite possibly so.

Kirbee feels out of place. As Aaron says, a genuinely good person, but one aware of the nature of the world. This seems kind of ridiculous. I'm not reading it in the character, either. To me she simply seems ignorant, or kind of stupid. Endtown is a comic that thrives on complex characters, so Kirbee seems a little too easy to me.

I think I would have preferred Aaron's original ending. It seems more Endtown-y. I can believe these characters snapping in the wasteland. I can believe good people doing shitty things. But Holly's descent into madness seems to have been tragically cut short, and now instead of understandable it seems like a character flaw.

>>6679243
Having seen Aaron's old fatso art, the restrain he shows with Gustine here is remarkable.

>>6680529

The problem is that I think Aaron doesn't see them as mistakes and yeah you're right...

We never seen Holly and even Flask said that she is a civvie and a liability, so her fucking up or biting the dust was foreshadowed. The names though? I thought of them just being some sort of a weird naming convention, never saw into it.

As for Kirbee... I actually thought she would die helping others. I would've expected that given how good has no right of existing in the Endtown universe. Something that was brought up numerous times, ESPECIALLY during Milk Trial.

And what I noticed is that Aaron was doing exactly the same thing that he did with Gustine, Flask and Maude... there's always this thing where an author has a hots for his/her character and tries to put a lot of good characteristics that don't really fit the character overall. With Flask it wasn't so apparent but I always felt like there was that evil Flask hellbent on destruction and then suddenly that Flask longed for emotional contact and comfort. It was weird.

Kirbee doesn't come off as a solid character, her ignorance flares up in the worst possible moments, and her cheerful comments at the time of trouble just feel off. She doesn't fit Endtown. Physically before the Thiccening, she was attractive and if she was in some goofy Sci-Fi comic I would've loved to see her in that. But in Endtown? Not really.

And yeah the original ending was pretty great. I felt in a way it was a throwback to the Gustine dilema. But Holly obviously choosing selfish way out instead of sticking with someone she grew attached to. Besides sometimes things are best left unsaid and that ending was really great.

Also on top of that

>>>/co/88287085

If Marx is really behind all of this, it just cheapens the comic. I know KC feeds us spoilers that are sometimes untrue but I have the uttermost gut feeling this is true.

>>6680901
I'm OK with Flask's resolution, because it at least worked her flashback into it, with her commentary on it all. Flask's history is one of my favorite Endtown things, and there were a lot of signs of there being more to her than just a crazy dictator. The redemption thing was cheesy as all get-out, but still. I didn't feel like something was left out, or something was rushed, more that something was added to the arc that otherwise wouldn't have been there. Of course, I don't know if Aaron planned the flashback and simply let her live, or came up with the flashback after he made the decision.

The current arc just went off the rails when we hit the end of Unity. In retrospect, it's easily to say that Aaron just kind of poisoned his own well when he decided to change his original plan. I'm not sure if that's right. And I'm slightly biased, but the waifu-fagging did start up right at the point where I think the arc took a dive. Holly's flashback was interesting, but even at the time I noticed the lack of a proper viewpoint character. All flashbacks except this one had someone breaking the fourth wall.

With this one, we had Lynn. I was expecting that to be a set-up for a good mystery. Even when the rescue happened, and Holly turned out to be an illusion, I expected some greater set-up. But it never happened.

And Holly just checking out is abrupt. Aaron says that she was "unstable", but that is exactly the term waifufags used, and it's a demeaning term. A normie like Holly being unstable in this situation is normal. Kirbee isn't because she's too dense to see the wasteland before her eyes, just as she was too dense to realize she was living in a cult. If things had gone as planned, and he showed her descent into madness AFTER the flashback, with her also providing commentary on it, that would have felt much more natural. Kirbee needn't be absent for that, either, though I don't see the point of throwing Wally a love interest right now.

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>>6679065
I feel like it came early.

Thanks, drawfriend.

>>6681857
Cont.

It's almost as if this resolution is too nice, as with flask, but it does Holly the disservice of writing her out without ever showing us her perspective. The Dear John letter was the first time we've seen Holly in fucking MONTHS. That is not a good resolution for a character. Maybe a combination of the two endings would have been good, with the planned plot more or less following through, but with us also seeing Holly went back to the ship.

I just think this plot needed a little more to make it work. Of course, Wally and Holly have already become the de facto main characters. But that's all the more reason to give them a proper sendoff. Then again, Aaron has flatout said he'll bring them back in a year, after the end of the next arc, so it's not really a sendoff for them as a group.

Also, the colour image of Wally and Kirbee watching the sunset was cheesy as hell.

I'm not really looking forward to the Dottie and Walter arc. The characters didn't really jibe with me. They're fine as supporting characters, but I'm not sure they can carry a story to satisfaction. I honestly think they're quite boring.

>>6681934
Oh, and far as Marx is concerned, I don't know how he figures into all this, and what his deal was with setting up the Milk Trial. The problem with him is that it's not at all clear what his goals are, and it's all hidden behind an annoying "lolrandumb" persona. Though, him ribbing Wally when we first met him was kind of entertaining.

But I think je figures heavily into the comic's metaphysical background. Hell, in Aaron's early comics he's pretty much a main character, and he fucks around with dimensions to the point of destroying one, I think. He also had a wife who looked like she was from the 80's.

As for KC, he seems to have lost it. I always thought his fanart was kind of exuberant, basically establishing a narrative of his own. He can draw more of that cute hyena girl, though. That'd be great.

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>>6680901
>>6681857
I agree completely.

>>6681934
>I'm not really looking forward to the Dottie and Walter arc
Give them a chance. Walt seems to have some hidden depths. It's true that he's mostly been a buffoon but last time we saw them Dottie was pushing him to change that.

>>6682040
Yeah, there's more to them. Aaron writes good characters (which is exactly why I'm so disappointed in Holly's resolution and Kirbee's introduction), but I'm just not really feeling it for them. This is the danger of switching up characters. Maybe that'll change, but I don't know.

>>6682007
The way Aaron likes to play with cartoon/comic tropes and cliches has always made me suspect that the "end game" is gonna be some meta commentary about that, maybe about the nature fiction and reality too, with how things are shaping up. I'm expecting a big breaking of the 4th wall for the final chapter and who better to do it than Aaron Marx?

A big hint is that Aaron describes the big bad as "the one behind EVERYTHING bad that happens in that world" and calls him "I". In other words, himself.

>>6680529
I also agree with all of this, though I kinda imagined Holly had someone (or two) before Wally because of Doc's comments.

>>6682314
Honestly, that seems a little pretentious for what I've always considered to be a quality comic. But who knows. There will definitely be a conclusion that's bigger than the character-driven drama we've seen thusfar. I just hope it won't completely clash, tonally.

I tend not to follow a lot of author talk. I've found it to always be kind of disheartening, ever after I started reading the blog of a writer I thought was good, and found out he was a horrible, petty person who thought everyone who didn't agree with him was either retarded, or evil. So I've only got a vague idea of Aaron's musings about this "I".

But who knows, maybe another infection will take him before he finishes the comic. Or it just takes his leg and breaks his spirit. It would almost be too fitting for the author of Endtown.

>>6682468
After Marx appeared, nothing was really the same. I would have loved it if he had sticked to Endtown being a retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic adventure-survival story. It was awesome already like that. But this is Aaron's story and if he wants more there's nothing we can do but hope for the best.

Another thing I miss is when the comic had more humorous moments, though I'm aware this isn't a popular opinion.

>>6682007
>As for KC, he seems to have lost it
He was never all there to begin with, but it was tolerable. The worst he had done was bring in the people who hate him.

Now it would surely be better if he didn't appear again.

>>6682468

It's already clashing a lot. There's just two easy solutions - dittos, which is soft version. And Marx which is the harder remedy. Each time impossible program arises, these two solutions pull characters out of the bind.

Look at the satellite arc. Ditto illusion saved them. And after that Marx...

>>6682916
If Aaron really wanted to impress, he should've let Holly and Wally die back then. It was the biggest HOLY SHIT moment until Marx appeared and everything turned out to be dittos.

>>6681920
>Thanks, drawfriend.

That was a commission i decided to share, fyi.

>>6683253
Oh really? It kinda looks like Jamil's work so I just assumed.

>>6683300

it is.

>>6683313
Oh... I hope he doesn't mind that we mentioned it.

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>>6682040
This moment is great.

>>6683488
haha, nah... he's cool

>>6682862
>Now it would surely be better if he didn't appear again.

i wouldn't count on that...

>>6682453
And there's that moment when she ran away from Wally while shouting "No one ever comes back!" or something like that. Rocket arc, was it? Before she changed her mind and stowed away in his backpack?

That and her reaction to Wally's surface mission overall kind of made me suspect she'd gotten to Endtown with some family member or friend other than Doc and lost them to surface duty, like others had.

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I know it's a bit of a controversial opinion but I think Marx is a very interesting character. When he first appeared he kind of sucked but at the end of the milk trial he showed his true colors and he appears to be a cog in an interdimensional machine. Eye seems to be an all powerful being and beings like the Lucranians are able to warp between dimensions like Marx. I kind of want to see what Marx is cooking up.

>>6679209
>Another two and a half to three weeks of t-crossing and i-dotting

Is he going to try and cram some character development for Chic and Kirbee into the tail end of the arc?

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>>6680529
>I think I would have preferred Aaron's original ending.
>>6680901
>And yeah the original ending was pretty great.

>>6687267
I can understand his motivation of not having her seem completely terrible, it's just that he choose to do it in a way that makes her seem completely unreasonable. Not to mention making Wally and Kirbee seem two-dimensional.

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>>6688201
I think it would have worked better if they'd all just talked it out and agreed to leave Holly behind in a nice, comfortable little illusory home with a bunch of books... and her company was just the plain old computer and the ditto-cat, without making her regress completely by participating willingly in self-deception regarding her old family.

>>6688173
This feels strangely disingenuous now.

>>6688234
Honestly, anything where Holly would have been an agent in her own faith, instead of disappearing for months in real life, and the last thing we see of her being a Dear John letter.

That's my main problem with this. It writes out a character without showing us her perspective on the matter. That's why I don't have any real emotional connection to this ending, and why I feel kind of cheated. I expect the wrap-up will now be about Wally and Kirbee. Sure, Aaron says he always showed Holly from Wally's perspective, but I think he's giving himself too much credit. We saw her without Wally plenty of times. But yeha, the send-off of one character focusing on two entirely different characters just seems wrong to me. So we got crazy, post-Unity Holly, the illusion of Holly past, a brief explanation, and now on with the show at lightning speed? I would have preferred if the flashback had been cut in favour of more present-day Holly. Or... well, anything with more Holly, really, given that it's the last fucking time we're seeing her, and we haven't seen her directly, in the comic, interaction with the other cast for months.

Aaron tried to pull his punches, but threw a proper buildup towards an end out with that. I got this feeling that nothing really *happened*, and that while Endtown is normally emotionally gutwrenching. To me, it's now just kind of like "well, this character isn't in the cast anymore". It seems like a TV show write-out.

>>6688338
*fate

>>6688338
>Aaron says he always showed Holly from Wally's perspective, but I think he's giving himself too much credit. We saw her without Wally plenty of times.
Yeah, he seems to regard her (at least nowadays) as a plot element in Wally's story, but what with the multiple sequences that focused entirely on her without Wally even being present, a lot of people could be forgiven for thinking of her as the heroine of their combined arc, at least up until the midpoint of unity.

>>6688362
Well, she was simply a well-defined character who stood on herself, roughly on par with Linda, if you take out all the stuff where Wally influenced her.

Suddenly declaring Wally to be the main actor, and Holly a side-dish seems like a retcon. The artwork itself speaks in favour of that viewpoint, given that Holly is front and centre as a main character in a lot of it.

It's all just kind of weird and rushed. Like he suddenly grew tired of the character. And I hope to Marx that it's not because he took a liking to Kirbee, because that would mean Aaron himself has become a waifufag.

>>6688401

He already said himself that he is a waifufag with Maude being the best overall female (to me she was bland as fuck and had nothing going for her other than being overemotional.)

I think his interest in females switches constantly from Gustine to Flask, from Flask to Holly, from Holly to Kirbee. You can really tell that from his promo art.

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>>6688401
>And I hope to Marx that it's not because he took a liking to Kirbee, because that would mean Aaron himself has become a waifufag.

Well, KC has let slip that Aaron has personally requested a lot of the stuff he draws of Kirbee.

Additionally, during Aaron's recent illness the auction he set up supposedly included art from a "secret stash" only he and Aaron had seen. I *think* the auction was cancelled - I wouldn't be surprised if Aaron put the kibosh on it. I certainly can't find it on FA now.

>>6688465

KC isn't the pinnacle of trustworthy furriness. It might've been like that.

But yeah in KC's arrogance he let a lot of things slip out. I think he also said that Aaron would love to see more fanart of Kirbee long ago... eh.

Doesn't really matter that much, watching this unfold is just sad because I now see that Aaron is not the quite the pristine understanding person he wanted us to believe and he has his "YOU GUYS JUST DON'T GET MY GENIUS" moments.

I think on top of that his character selection which seem to be limited is limited by that that overally he doesn't really get out that much. When anons asked him about a lot of media and games, he was surprisingly limited in what he read/watched.

>>6688519
>I think on top of that his character selection which seem to be limited is limited by that that overally he doesn't really get out that much. When anons asked him about a lot of media and games, he was surprisingly limited in what he read/watched.

Honestly, I've long suspected that Aaron is likely an Aspie.

He has a super-narrow range of interests about which he has a comprehensive knowledge, but lacks a lot of knowledge of things outside those interests. He reacts very oddly to upsets in his routine (remember the butcher's block incident?). He appears to have a comfort item in the form of Marx. He also appears to understand the people inside his head very well while not necessarily being able to do the same for real people easily, both in the contexts of conveying his ideas to them properly via his writing and understanding their reactions to same.

Of course Aaron himself claims he limits his intake to avoid being influenced and thus losing originality, though that raises its own much-talked about set of issues, namely that by denying himself any grounding in the genres he's working in he keeps inadvertently causing himself to do the exact thing he's set out to avoid, accidentally reinventing the wheel repeatedly. Of course it's arguable that he should simply stop caring about this because there's nothing new under the sun anyway (and he keeps getting this proven to him) and it's how and with what tools the writer tells the story that's important, but either way he should probably cease the behaviour for his own and his work's benefit.

> (remember the butcher's block incident?)

Remind me exactly what that was... I might've forgotten.

>>6688599
His favourite butcher's block that he used as a drawing board wore out too badly to be usable any more, and he seemed to be in no small amount of distress over it, claiming, IIRC, that it made it near-impossible for him to draw. I guess they must have found him an identical replacement or something.

>>6688608

Oh shit I remember that! Now that you mention it... it is somehow distressing. There might be some psychological issues there. Maybe what we're dealing with here is an early stroke of genius by an autistic person early on with the first few arcs and now we're kinda seeing him using the comic as sort of a mental cushion for plethora of issues he's been having. Don't want to play armchair psychologist too much here but he strikes me more and more not as genuinely sincere person as I first though he would be.

>>6688650
I don't know about all that, and I must stress that I got the info on the butcher's block second hand, as I suspect most people who know about it have. Aaron shows more than a few of the signs, though, even if you subtract that. Obsessively focusing on his work to the point of damaging his health, for instance. I'm very glad he listened to his doctor on that one.

>>6688588
After reading his previous comics, I got the impression that Aaron was a little batty. Especially with people claiming that Marx was based on an imaginary friend or something.

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>>6688465
>>6688519

Here we go, Google still has an entry for the auction if you search "furaffinity aaron neathery", even though it's been deleted. With a bit of comparison to items still in KC's gallery, the ID number shows it was posted on October 24th. Unfortunately nothing was cached because of FA's robots.txt

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>>6688465
>>6688519
>>6688715

Plus, I remembered that someone had linked it in one of the /co/ threads, so here's a desu screenshot with some (possibly interpretory) details of what was on there.

https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/87121424/#87183087

>>6688338
>the send-off of one character focusing on two entirely different characters just seems wrong to me
This, not to mention that Chic also got put in the sideline for most of this chapter in favor of them. I was looking forward to seeing him develop more than anything else so that was disappointing.

Aaron claims Kirbee is -the- interesting new character because she embraces the apocalypse even though Wally has been doing that for a long time (and so did Albert!) but a child who was born in this crazy new world isn't? It was pretty disingenuous how Kirbee was the one asking all the questions during the flashback when Chic has more reasons to wonder about the old world than her. Then when Aaron finally remembered him it turned it into another Kirbee moment (though admittedly, a pretty good one if it does end up fitting with her backstory). But the thing that really baffles me is that, back in Unity, Wally and Holly were the first to get interested in Chic's well-being and now he shows none of that, almost completely ignoring him. I don't expect Wally to know how to handle a child from the get-go but not even adressing him directly seems a bit too much. I hope we get at least -some- interaction between the two next time because Aaron implied that Wally had a rough childhood too and it would be a shame if he didn't use that.

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>>6679209

You know, that thing with the ship still being there is kind of stupid, especially since the computer specifically mentioned it was recharging for something. It'll be a sitting duck for the first Topsiders that do a radar check of the area. If they spot it, the dittos won't do jack against a PT, pic related. Holly hasn't been left in a safe place at all, and Wally the military engineer, of all people, should know this.

Or maybe he intends Wally and the rest to find the burned out hulk on the way back from the Great Green to tell Endtown about it and the not-a-virus (because the info has to get there somehow). Who knows.

>>6688417
He says that all the Flask stuff was requested by fans.

>>6689097
>not to mention that Chic also got put in the sideline for most of this chapter in favor of them. I was looking forward to seeing him develop more than anything else so that was disappointing.

The problem here is that, even though the focus was on Wally and Kirbee, there was no real development for either of them, besides hooking up. i don't see how chic would have develop either given the circumstances.

>>6689254

also, while Holly didn't develop either, we did get a lot of information about her past, and we know can understand her problems a lot more clearly.

Too bad the ending didn't exactly reflect the consequences of her mental problems... not for me at least...

>>6688608
It was a gift from his grandparents so I understand his attachment to it (I was furious when a laundry machine shredded a towel my grandma gave me when I was nine, just as I was going to "retire" it too). He didn't replace it either, he just uses the other side now.

>>6688650
I think you're exaggerating a bit. He's not more disfunctional than (what used to be) the typical 4channer.

>>6689117
I miss Albert.

>>6689254
His ignorance of old humanity. We got tidbits like the plastigrass and "It's a face!" and a big moment in the nursery.

>>6689414
>"It's a face!"

that was cute as fuck

>>6689436
Cute for us, disturbing for Chic it seems.

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>>6689464
he was more surprised than anything.

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FUCK YOU GUYS!

i came here for porn, not for perfectly civilized comic discussion.

>>6689495

The /co/ thread is swarmed with people that are obsessed. There is some legit concerns that were voiced here last time and there are more now.

I mean after the RPG fiasco and the newest e-mail update I can't say I have much faith in the comic progressing somewhere. It seems that Aaron is disinterested in the comic getting out and lets himself controlled by a lot of bad people (Jarlidium guys, KC) plus on top of that he is not too keen on accepting critique about his work and relies on what someone said - reinventing the wheel. I just don't see Endtown getting anywhere with those kind of attitudes.

It's ridiculously hard as it is to approach Aaron and tell him that something is rotten given how much false info has been fed to him at this point and how weary he is becoming of us. It's disappointing too because while I really enjoyed the Rocket arc and a good part of Milk Trial, I can't say that Unity and beyond was that enjoyable.

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>>6689495
It IS pretty bizarre.

Also, that pic shows how Allie actually went around though she would probably look like an alligator down there.

>>6689551

I feel you, i was just being sarcastic.

I do admit i liked unity, and the Holly flashback arc went to shit the moment human holly showed up, for me personally. From that point, it was just a drag.

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>>6689573

>It IS pretty bizarre.

It is, i don't want to start shit or anything, but i find it funny how the people who are ok with visiting the trash threads for lewds, are the ones who are able to keep a decent conversation while respecting others opinions regardless of their personal preferences, while in /co/ those anons who cry "FURRY" "WAIFUFAG" can barely discuss anything without turning the thread into a fucking battlefield.

>>6689601
They're just hypocrites. They believe accusing others of being waifufags hides their own faggotry. Specially evident with Kirbee fans who love to do that while defending themselves, not realizing it makes it more obvious. Or maybe they don't really care and just do it to piss everyone else off. Who knows.

>>6689575

Unity arc was a bit bizarre in the structure, there are some traces of redesign but not that big. Again I think the tone started shifting when Kirbee was introduced with her blissful naivety that totally ruined the gravity of few scenes.

Again it's something one of the Anons have said before - Aaron's version of Kirbee in his head is totally different than what we perceive her as.

Body aside that I enjoy, personality is sincere and nice but as Wally proved it or Al, even characters we think of "Good" tend to have a nasty side to them. Kirbee is deprived of that, so she just doesn't fit. Holly was far from perfect and since her induction into the comic, her behavioural pattern was weird, the strange attachment and everything.

I dunno what to think of it all to be honest. It feels that while Holly seemed genuine in keeping her secret and right at the start of Unity she started showing her nasty side, I doubt we will see any nasty side from Kirbee... maybe except her smacking Holly. That was funny.

>>6689690
>Specially evident with Kirbee fans who love to do that while defending themselves, not realizing it makes it more obvious. Or maybe they don't really care and just do it to piss everyone else off. Who knows.

it sucks though, i am a kirbeefag myself and i do hate how most of them behave, there are tho, some very blatant cases of falseflagging in the threads that people never fail to falls into.

>>6689716
>characters we think of "Good" tend to have a nasty side to them. Kirbee is deprived of that, so she just doesn't fit.

we wont know for sure until we get to Kirbee's backstory, hopefully Aaron will give us one that actually makes sense.

>I doubt we will see any nasty side from Kirbee...

I am hoping there is, not as in she's secretly evil!!, but i would love to see her struggling to make some difficult calls... i have a feeling this is gonna be the case when we get to the Unity genocide and how she took part on it.

>maybe except her smacking Holly. That was funny.

i actually hated that, Wally should have been the one who smacked her bitch face down, that would have definitely made Holly's decision to leave wally a lot easier.

>>6689764

> we wont know for sure until we get to Kirbee's backstory, hopefully Aaron will give us one that actually makes sense.
> I am hoping there is, not as in she's secretly evil!!, but i would love to see her struggling to make some difficult calls... i have a feeling this is gonna be the case when we get to the Unity genocide and how she took part on it.

At this point I doubt it given the e-mail. He's a bit too gun-ho on her being such a nice person... Maybe she wandered in after the destruction. I did like the fact Wally's past made him a pacifist and that Al did some pretty nasty stuff during his quest, Linda also wasn't a sweetheart during her stay in Endtown...

> I actually hated that, Wally should have been the one who smacked her bitch face down, that would have definitely made Holly's decision to leave wally a lot easier.

I understand and in part I agree, but I dunno I just liked that panel, looked really hilarious and still is hilarious when I look at it. Just the expressions and the cartoony form makes it so funny to me.

>>6689806

>At this point I doubt it given the e-mail. He's a bit too gun-ho on her being such a nice person...

i have a little hope Kirbee will have her own tragic past, making her just PERFECTLY NICE just because would absolutely destroy the character and make her incredibly pointless, just like this this ending completely killed Holly for me.

>Linda also wasn't a sweetheart during her stay in Endtown...

freshly mutated Topsider, she still hated every single second of her existence and the people around her, add the loss of her child, I just can't blame her...

>>6689495
I've never actually been interested in Endtown porn. I like the comic, and I have ideas about it. There was no thread up on /co/, and I had stuff to say about Aaron's email.

And, of course, /co/ is a cesspool of shitty accusations. The last thread I participated in was chock full of waifufags going on and on about how they were right or wrong about shit. If I'd voice Kirbee-critical opinions in that environment, the thread would turn to shit even more than it already was.

People here are degenerate perverts who are far beyond simple teeny girl stuff like "shipping". Hence, no bullshit.

>>6689863
That's the thing about Linda. She came in from a different, much worse society, so she could perfectly pin down all the bullshit that went on in Endtown. Everyone in that place buys into their collective self-pity background, but as a fresh mutant, she had a much different perspective. I enjoyed her outsider look in on that place.

I hope she didn't die horribly somewhere. I found her to be quite sympathetic.

>>6690062
Yeah, it's really annoying when the end point of most arguments is who is best girl. Like certain people jumping in favor of the current version of events just because it has Kirbee when the other version could have also included her too and gone mostly unchanged. I agree with many who say that Kirbee would be more important in the original where Wally and Chic would've been devastated over the loss of Holly. Now they're simply okay with it because they have Kirbee and it's just weird when the chapter was about sending Holly off.

>>6690147
Perhaps Aaron hoped that we reflected their sentiments?

>>6690147
>Now they're simply okay with it because they have Kirbee and it's just weird when the chapter was about sending Holly off.

Not exactly, well, not for me anyways... I always wanted Kirbee and Wally to get together, but i also wanted Holly's ending to be memorable, i liked her too and i wanted to be able to remember her. We got a rushed as fuck ending and the Wally Kirbee relationship that i initially wanted, now serves no real purpose since wally could have moved on apparently without her, according to Aaron, she's just the next pussy in line... i am far from Ok with what we got.

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>>6690201
That's what I meant. I'm not saying it's Kirbee's fault, it's just weird that Wally basically went "Oh well, good thing I've got Kirbee" like it was nothing. It looks like even Kirbee cared more!

>>6690276
>"Oh well, good thing I've got Kirbee"

More like just "Oh well"

>It looks like even Kirbee cared more!

She obviously cared about her, she wouldn't have gotten in the middle of them if Holly had survived, she would have swallowed her feelings and comforted herself nurturing Chic, like she's been doing since the arc started.

the whole thing fucking sucks...

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>>6690305
>More like just "Oh well"
That would've been the case if it wasn't for this, it's not an "at least" because he is more than grateful for Kirbee, despite everything that happened. Like everything else didn't matter, "those were just illusions but we are real". His relationship with Holly might have been an "illusion" too but it deserves more than a "it wasn't real love".

>>6690387

well, i was talking about the strip in which he aparently smiles at holly dumping him, that was complete shit as well. i honestly don't see how he would be ok with that.

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>>6690401
Yeah, I can accept everything else to a degree except that one panel.

>>6690449

i mean, i don't expect him to NOT understand where Holly comes from and her decision to dump him, but i at least expected him to throw a small fit and cry on Kirbee's arms, after realizing he lost the girl that saved him and had a relationship with him for 2 years... it was just disconnected, it fells off

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>>6690473
I just don't expect him to be smiling like that. I get it with Holly who is insane but not on Wally, who should understand the gravity of the situation even if he accepts it.

>>6690560

literally being ok with holly being milked for emotions until she dies... it's like he never cared about her in the first place.

also the captain part... was just meh, what does that mean? how much control does she has over the AI? did she really was the one who assaulted Wally and tormented Kirbee? i don't get it.

>>6690560

that strip fucking infuriates me

>>6690560
To be fair, I don't think that's a smile. But the entire exchange just doesn't feel as heavy as it ought to be. Like, Holly is gone now, that's all folks!

This is just a floppy ending to an arc that lasted years. I saw a page from the rocket arc earlier in this thread, and it ha a 2009 timestamp. Seven years of these characters, and you just send her off with three pages after almost exactly a year of absence. I just looked at the archive, and I definitely get the feeling the characters are more grounded before the start of the flashback. After such a long focus on something else, it's important to re-establish the characters, and he failed at that.

I think Aaron lost something over the past year of doing Holly's flashback. Maybe he thinks he spent the last year focusing on Holly, but I disagree. It was its own thing, and it should have been shorter, in retrospect. It's like his character writing skills wilted.

>>6690560

bitch didn't even had the balls to talk to his face... this shit is so unsatisfying.

>>6689337
I hope we see more of him in the next arc and not just a short cameo

>>6690785
>I think Aaron lost something over the past year of doing Holly's flashback. Maybe he thinks he spent the last year focusing on Holly, but I disagree. It was its own thing, and it should have been shorter, in retrospect. It's like his character writing skills wilted.

It's his progressing illness, I'm certain, perhaps coupled with a side order of depression. Feels like everything slowly began to fall apart after the Unity hiatus, and it started to become really apparent just after the sequence with Lyn's death.

>>6679065
>>Christmas in Endtown

ruining endings close to you!

>>6687138
That or he's going to react to the dissatisfaction over Holly's ending by cramming some exposition into six strips of encore/extra flashback.

But yeah, it'll probably be something to set up the remaining members of Wally's group heading for the sea while bonding with each other.

>>6687138
>>6694374

i am pretty sure this is it, we will be shifting to endtown tomorrow

>>6696101
He says it'll be about two weeks before the next arc begins, though. So is "Christmas in Endtown" going to be a two week gag sequence, and then we get an arc, or is CiE the beginning of the next arc?

>>6696147
i misinterpreted that part, you are right, two more weeks of this terrible ending... i don't see how it can get any better or worse.

>>6682862
>The worst he had done was bring in the people who hate him.

It really sucks how they shit up the threads, but i can't really blame some of them for hating the guy with passion... the guy takes money from people and takes his sweet as time to deliver on his commissions, while at the same time showers friends and the threads with art. He's earned his reputation and people have legit reasons so hate him. It's a shame they have to sperg on the endtown threads though, best thing would be if he never shows up, like you mention.

>>6694374
Well, if he reads /trash/. If he just reads /co/, he'll have to sift through loads of shit to get to these opinions. Most likely we're going to get some sort of resolution for Wally, Kirbee, and Chic. He's already said he will return to them in a year or so, or at least to Kirbee, so he'll have to "park" them somewhere that feels like a satisfying conclusion.

Going by the letter, probably some sappy shit with Wally and Kirbee growing closer together. Not really looking forward to it. I thought he was pretty spot-on in terms of relationships until now. They felt believable. Even pre-flashback Kirbee seemed like a "real" person, in the way she talked and stuff like that. The few pages we've had right now seem like straight out of a Mexican soap opera.

Ah well, I can keep going over this, but here's my simple opinion: The comic took a nosedive after Unity, Aaron lost grip on his characters, we got a way too long passive flashback, and the actual exit of the character was hastily done and shoddily written. If I could take a few months off the flashback and give it to a decent narrative of Holly actually, believably breaking down, losing faith, and rejecting the world in some way, I would do it.

>>6697086
Endtown threads are just overrun with irrelevant conversation, be it KC acting like a diva, people hating him, or people bitching about their waifu's. People need to settle the fuck down already.

>>6697126
>we got a way too long passive flashback
That's one of the things that made this arc really weird to me. Apart from the fact that this is Aaron's longest flashback yet, to the point where it felt like Wally was just letting himself be lead by the nose through a whole bunch of exposition in an OOC fashion, it also felt like he discarded the ditto-based narrative method he was using around the time of Lyn's death and just made it a pure non-ditto flashback for no reason, before switching back unremarked in the bunker.

It's also weird that one side effect of the decision to re-focus things on Holly at the end after cutting out half the flashback stuff he wanted to do seems to have been that Wally has let Farx go completely without comment. One would think that having actually met Marx, that would be the second most prominent thing in his mind apart from Holly right now, but he seems utterly incurious about it.

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>>6697126
>Going by the letter, probably some sappy shit with Wally and Kirbee growing closer together. Not really looking forward to it. I thought he was pretty spot-on in terms of relationships until now. They felt believable. Even pre-flashback Kirbee seemed like a "real" person, in the way she talked and stuff like that. The few pages we've had right now seem like straight out of a Mexican soap opera.

Yeah, this ending feels weirdly... I dunno, mawkish?

And when he tossed this one out I legit wondered if he was intentionally making a callback or if he just forgot he used these lines already.

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Someone mentioned that Aaron skipped out on addressing Holly's word-of-god barrenness and how it affected her? Well, here's something else he was going to deal with in her storyline but didn't. Just found it looking for something else on 4chandata.org, which has stuff Desuarchive doesn't.

Really seems like he left her story half told, whether you believe that he was always going to cut her out of the plot or not.

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>>6682314
>>6682468
Also, it turns out you guys aren't the only ones to speculate on Aaron Marx and I being literal meta-whatsit aspects of Aaron Neathery, unless this was one of you ages back.

Notable the mid-last-year spoiler-anon (KC?) remarks that the relevant speculation is "close".

Personally I think that would be awful.

>>6698446
Come on, it's an obvious callback.

>>6699000
Back in the day, RPGanon was also pretty close to Aaron and would talk about lore nobody else knew though only when he felt it was "the right time" to avoid being too much of a spoiler.

>>6699406
Ah. Well if RPGAnon's still around after last thread, maybe he could clarify if that was him and what it all meant?

>>6682314
>>6682468
>>6698901
>This is where all the "thought that thinks itself"/"dream that dreams itself" stuff comes from

>>6702330
Oops, linked the wrong one.

>>6699000

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It's funny that Aaron says Wally never really knew Holly and all that now... once he seems to have considered what they had genuine enough to be worthy of envy.

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In fact just a few years ago he seems almost like a different person... especially in the way he talks about his characters and their comic.

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Another little thing that makes me think the concept art was once semi-canon, even if it isn't now...

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Oh, and the story behind this one and the other dragon pic... everyone seems to think this is foreshadowing Kirbee or something, but apparently the one with Holly on Wally's head, telling him to take care of the dragon, came first and this one is a second, derivative pic that someone specifically requested of Holly attempting to do the job herself.

>>6702693
Those were happier times, I guess.

>>6702705
I think he did mention wanting to use that sand buggy at some point but couldn't manage to get it in the story.

>>6702715
>Those were happier times, I guess.
Yeah, I guess the bad luck and infections hit him hard. Reading his older GoComics comments and his Deviant Art page is an eye-opener. He really does seem to have mostly withdrawn from all non-email communication with his fans, for instance.

>>6702330
I think Aaron might be dreaming himself.

As >>6702690 says, his perception of things has obviously changed over time. Kirbee is the biggest example of that. It happened with Flask, too. It seems Aaron is rapidly turning into some kind of Dagoth Ur, unsure on whether he is the dream or the dreamer. And all his claims about "this was always intended to happen" might just be as dreamy as anything else.

I used to write (poorly), and I'm familiar with this process. You can have an idea for a long time, change it, and convince yourself it was always intended to be that way. And the human mind is something that is naturally always in flux. You're only as sane, as knowledgable, and as capable as your most recent thought. Memory, by its very nature, is imperfect. It's quite possible to insert false memories through suggestion, and it's likely a lot of people do this to themselves by accident. Hell, I've had times where I remembered some forgotten thing, only to realize it was a dream I once had, not reality.

And I've had some weird, fuck-off dreams, too. I met the devil in a dream, once. Scared the piss out of me for two weeks straight, and I'm not even Christian. I had a friend who went into psychosis, too. That was also a good example of the dreamworld and the real world colliding.

I think Aaron's colours are beginning to bleed through each other, and Endtown is his Red Mountain. But who will be our Nerevarine?

>>6702712
>everyone seems to think this is foreshadowing Kirbee or something
Kirbee literally only existed until she appeared in the comic.

>>6702858
I know, I've always found it odd whenever someone reacts to those two pics with a "hmmmm" or an implication.

No strip yet, and after a weekend to boot. Wonder if something's happened?

>>6702894

you realize they are joking, right?

Suule here... I do want to weight in something. I did notice Aaron's response (I kinda was awaiting it too) and well. I wouldn't say it puzzles me, but it worries me about Aaron's writing capabilities. It's gonna be rather long and I'm sorry, posting this on my tumblr and FA wouldn't really work.

I'm no stranger to writing fiction and even worse - interactive fiction, where rewrites will happen on the fly due to player actions or suggestions. I understand that whole "I know better what my character think", which is in a way bane of writing sometimes - it's hard to give a view into someone's mind without thought bubbles and you have to rely on sole naturalism - one's viewpoint should be determined by what they do or mention. Endtown comic format never extensively used thought bubbles instead relying on our perception through character actions.

Now here's where the problem comes - sometimes what we think is apparent to us through that behaviour portrayal is not apparent to others. I rely on editors and feedback to see whether what I'm trying to put through is coming in a way I want. If there's a dissonance I often ask for help "How to make this idea work." I like to spend hours talking about potential ideas and behaviour patterns with my friends as sort of a brainstorm and write down the best ones. It makes a believable coherent narrative if I filter an idea through few people. Not all of them need to get it, but if I get about 80-90% positive feedback? That gets through. Eventually I do get a good catalogue of throwaway characters I can use that are just crystal clear in reception.

>>6704052

On top of that I value going out and talking with people - they're a great source of information and their stories are sometimes the basis of some of the characters I've wrote. Sometimes I test-drive a character concept through an RPG session. I try a lot of different tools to make sure the characters are 'readable' when one needs them. Of course there are characters with secret motives, but concealing them is another pair of beans.

To add to that - research! I do enjoy reading a lot, playing games, watching documenatries, watching movies... even the bad ones. It doesn't muddle me in the slightest. if you go by the notion of history repating itself or that human nature at it's core is not changeable (or by modern standards "The Simpsons did it!"), you'll avoid reinventing a lot in your fiction.

>>6704060

Now with Aaron? The latest E-mail update makes me extra sure he doesn't have an editor, he doesn't have any discussion about some of his ideas that plain don't make sense. I once asked if there's any dissident amongst Topsiders and he flat out said no. I later talked about this with my friend and while my friend said that indoctrination and propaganda can dull one, I showed examples of end-of-WWI unrest, anti-Hitler sentiments when the war was failing and few other examples where in a society under strain is put under hardships, there will be some unrest. Then I understood that Topsiders are meant to be one dimensional villians unless otherwise noted. They're like that stupid fat German that yells "HALT!" and gets gunned down by our gun-totting American liberators. Total stereotype. And while that works overall good for something as corny as Guns of Navarone, Endtown is a character-driven drama. It should be more akin maybe to Big Red One, where there are no clear winners in this. Hell Kelly's Heroes make a much better narrative when in the end all that matters is the gold in the bank and the German in the tank is as much of a thieving scumbag as all of Kelly's Squad. No clear winners, only bastards. That's how you make an interesting narrative!

Also what some anon noticed is the lack of research done to shield himself from 'bad ideas'. A reasonable man will pick out the good ones and put their own spin on them. That's how Fallout was made for God's sake! They took Wasteland setting and instead of making it pulpy and silly they made it more gritty and realistic. Copying isn't necessarily bad if you improve the original design.

And I disagree, one of the main characters being dead was done in comics. Fucking OGLAF did it out of all of them. A comedy porn comic. Aaron gets a bit too cock-sure of his writing to the point he thinks that leaning into critique is pandering and establishing his own narrative is important. I don't believe it is a healthy attitude. I've written for myself before. And it's a very bizarre, outlandish thing that I've wrote that will lie on the bottom of my writing drawer, just because it makes more sense to me than it will to others. This is B-movie material I don't want out.

>> 6690785

I think there was an increasing dissonance ever since we had Flask in play. As someone noticed earlier our perception of Flask was different than his. That was addressed in a flashback though. But that always bothered me... somehow. It was like an absolvtion of sin in comic form. If struck me as "Oh I understand now", but the Marx bit just... something was hell off to me. I think it increased over time, after all no one cared about Maude in Milk Trail arc, and then we got thrown that bomb in the letter about how Maude was rather important with her motherly characteristics. If Aaron didn't point that out, I wouldn't have noticed.

>> 6697126

I agree. Unity was the breaking point. Sheer horror of Jim was good, but after that is was a nose-dive in quality.

>>6699000
>>6702795

I'm gonna say... Animal Man did it the best and it's argueably one of the best examples of realtion of creator to the media. Coyote's Bible issue even with some of its cheap imagery, does give you that unnerving feeling as a content creator.

>>6704074

That's all what I really wanted to say. I can't say that there's much love left for the comic now due to the last letter update. I was quietly hoping for a much better response and acceptance of the criticism. It does pain me because the original ending with Holly disappearing and people being uncertain where she went was interesting out of the storytelling perspective. Some could've thought that death was the ultimate escape, some could've thought that living an illusion is. It was a strong narrative akin to better movies from Hollywood golden age. But it was all thrown out cause of a plethora of vague reasons.

Either way it doesn't really matter. I've grown a bit too attached to the comic and in my own stupidity I failed to see the warning lights some of my friends shown to me at many points. Pity too cause I did invest myself into the comic a lot, possibly one of the few webcomics I ever drew fanart for.

There will be other endeavours and there will be other things. I just hope for the sake of the remaining fans, Aaron reads this and thinks that maybe expanding his writing workshop is a good choice or else he'll be making the same mistake a year later.

>>6704074
>I'm gonna say... Animal Man did it the best and it's argueably one of the best examples of realtion of creator to the media. Coyote's Bible issue even with some of its cheap imagery, does give you that unnerving feeling as a content creator.
DUDE, yes. I wish that comic was required reading.

>>6703305
Well, he's either sick again, or he has read the backlash and is wondering what to do. I mean, he *did* say that he thought this was a better exit for Holly than what he had in mind, so maybe he's taken aback at the response.

Either way, Aaron, you degenerate perv, if you're reading this, don't worry too much about it.

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>>6704066
I think it doesn't make sense how we're supposed feel sympathy for Marx because he acts "for the greater good" but not for the Topsiders who honestly believe they're just folks trying to save humanity and we've seen many of them who aren't completely comfortable with the cleansing. Those who go "DIE FREAKS" usually do it after a comrade is killed which isn't different at all from how everyone else reacts to that. We've seen overenthusiastic ones too but we also don't judge all of Endtown with Jacob Jackrabbit.

If Aaron really wanted to make them seem totally evil he didn't do it well.

>>6704066
>Big Red One
>Guns of Navarone
>Kelly's Heroes

Are you kidding me? I was just talking about all this stuff a few days ago with my friends. It's been ages since I watched a good, oldfashioned war movie. Sometimes it seems stuff like Fury and Inglourious Basterds is more black and white than the old movies ever were.

But I really wonder how Aaron's perception of the topsiders works. On the one hand it's very autistic to work in absolutes like that. On the other, we've had numerous occasions where Topsiders DO show dissent, or someone like Linda who seems to be deprogrammed right quick. Does Aaron realize he makes them look quite reasonable?

>>6704074
>one of the main characters being dead was done in comics

Yeah, I don't know how anyone could think that's a new idea.

>This is B-movie material I don't want out.

Been there. Let friends read it. Still embarrassed every time I think about it.

>It was like an absolvtion of sin in comic form.

That's literally what it was. Marx takes her sin out, and gives her a second chance. I mean, I *liked* Flask, and I can tell you that sequence was a little too much on the nose. I can forgive it because I think her flashback is great, but Marx taking her sin away fell out of tone with the rest of the comic.

>If Aaron didn't point that out, I wouldn't have noticed.

Yeah, "motherly characteristics" meaning "big, lactating cow tits". There's no real symbolism at work, there. I liked Maude as well, and thought she was a well developed secondary character, but to me the Milk Trial was more about Linda, and about Endtown being pushed over the edge. And that it did well. Maude was only a bit player in it, though.

>>6704117
It feels weird to me, too. I only came into it earlier this year. Had that whole enthusiasm you have when you just started reading something. I loved it. It's genuinely a comic that really messes with genre expectations. The current problems springing forth from the creator, well, we'll see, I suppose.

>>6704415

Grant is his and miss but his run of Animal Man is excellent. I agree that it should be required reading maybe right next to the first three phonebooks of Cerberus.

>>6704851
> I think it doesn't make sense how we're supposed feel sympathy for Marx because he acts "for the greater good" but not for the Topsiders who honestly believe they're just folks trying to save humanity and we've seen many of them who aren't completely comfortable with the cleansing.

Remember the soldier that was doing this methodically and said they should give them the LEAST amount of pain? Then his suit is torn open and he begs for a killing. What about Flask's flashback? Or Jim and Sarah. I think his statement contradicts his writing. Then again in his eyes they might be evil.

> Those who go "DIE FREAKS" usually do it after a comrade is killed which isn't different at all from how everyone else reacts to that. We've seen overenthusiastic ones too but we also don't judge all of Endtown with Jacob Jackrabbit.

Remember when someone asked Aaron has he seen Wizards and he said no? All of that is all too similar to "THEY KILLED FRITZ" and he said no. In Bakshi's work that whole scene was a satire about the stupidity of war, here I'm thinking it's a bit too sincere.

> If Aaron really wanted to make them seem totally evil he didn't do it well.

I think he made them conveniently evil. Linda went from a person that wanted to vaporize the team into "JEEPERS I'M A FURRY". The minute they turn into Anthros, their personality changes a bit and forget their whole ideology on a whim. It does haunts them sometimes like in Linda's case but overall it's weird.

>>6704953
I feel like this is the first time I've talked with a /co/mrade in a while. This shouldn't happen outside of /co/, how did things get so bad?

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>>6681920
>>6683300
His work is delicious.

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>>6705132

I've been on this board for 13 years... after so much time you long for normal discussion.

Also today's comic. Yeah Aaron, real mature.

>>6705281
That's some right and proper anal devastation.

>>>/co/88373261

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>>6705281
To be fair, it's an accurate depiction.

>>6705368

Accurate to a certain degree. He tosses away all the criticism and pictures them as nothing but a bunch of squabbling children. On top of that using a character that's universally hated and reminding everyone about the whole Flask x Marx thing.

On top of that, it's done totally in-setting just making it headscratching... was it a story told by Marx? Is this Endtown? If this is Endtown people knew Holly and Wally.

I think it's just his way of getting back at audience, a very mean and stupid way.

>>6705408
>I think it's just his way of getting back at audience, a very mean and stupid way.

he's just making fun of how silly waifuwars are, and he's right.

>>6705408
I hope we get a legit update later and this is just a "bonus", not canon.

>>6705446

Well not exactly. Look at the first comment thrown. "Wally can't drop Holly like that" and scroll back to what we've discussed here earlier. We were talking exactly about that. 3rd panel shows "Oh it's just waifufags being mad. Stay salty."

There is a different layer to all of this where he tries to picture ANY criticism of the ending as nothing but "Hollyfags being butthurt".

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We need more anatomically correct Jim

>>6705281
>Marx
arc ruined

>>6705281
Well, at least he's honest about Flask. Not really sure what to think of this. I think he waited and looked at the threads.

>>6705368
Not really. It's an accurate depiction of the shippers. Not of us. Shippers or not, it was still kind of shitty writing. I think he uses the shippers to deflect proper criticism.

>>6705854

> Not really. It's an accurate depiction of the shippers. Not of us. Shippers or not, it was still kind of shitty writing. I think he uses the shippers to deflect proper criticism.

He does. I mean, I'm myself is just tired. I'll be doing a final fanart involving Marx to comment on this.I think Aaron just broke me inside today with pure toxicity.

>>6705281
Wow, he worked on it 'til midday after a weekend, and came up with that. Puts me in mind of those times in many a webcomic or other story-based creative work when the author has evidently taken umbrage to something and then spent XX hours painstakingly assembling a non- or semi-canon side-chapter to show how Not Mad they are. Except this one is apparently canon. I mean, this is the first time he's ever referenced the fanbase in-comic before, right? And it's a negative reference...

Still, maybe he can use this to salvage the ending, putting the weirdness down to Marx bending the tale to his own tastes and being a Days-of-Our-Lives-tier writer to boot. Or maybe this is a sign that he intends to abandon this arc and use different characters to do whatever Wally and Co. would have ended up doing because there's too much bad blood about that group in the fanbase?

>Kirbee is an idiot

Well, she kinda is... stopped clock and all that.

>>6705854
>I think he waited and looked at the threads.

I dunno, it still seems like it could be drawn from a heavily-filtered version of them that's been handed to him. Maybe he'll turn around and have Marx address the actual criticisms over the next couple of weeks? Brace for potential cringiness if he does...

>>6706361
Take it easy, bro. I know you invested a lot of time and attention into this, but it's still just a comic, and all the good stuff is still there. Aaron is an autist, and always has been. That made it entertaining, but when you're dealing with this sort of autism there's always a chance that the author goes off the rails. In Aaron's case, he's been an obscure artist until relatively recently, the past two years or so I'd say, so maybe that had an effect on him.

In my experience, webcomics always go to shit unless the artist has a plan to end it all.

>>6706509
We'll see. At least he has the excuse that Marx has always been his self-insert. I just hope he doesn't take criticism as an excuse to go full ham. This was a weaksauce ending, and it's not because of waifufaggotry. Waifufaggotry is a symptom of poor writing.

>>6706956
He pretty much went full ham already.

>>6706956
>We'll see. At least he has the excuse that Marx has always been his self-insert. I just hope he doesn't take criticism as an excuse to go full ham. This was a weaksauce ending, and it's not because of waifufaggotry. Waifufaggotry is a symptom of poor writing.

I think we're going to get two weeks of Aaron Neathery as Aaron Marx talking down to his audience (depicted as squabbling children), possibly delivering a cut down version of the kind of stuff he said in the letter as an Important Lesson. Probably there'll be one or more nice, intelligent, even-tempered children who graciously accept the explanation while the angry ones storm off to some kind of "don't let the door hit you"-flavoured meta-commentary.

I admit, Aaron could still surprise me, though.

>>6707421

> I think we're going to get two weeks of Aaron Neathery as Aaron Marx talking down to his audience (depicted as squabbling children), possibly delivering a cut down version of the kind of stuff he said in the letter as an Important Lesson. Probably there'll be one or more nice, intelligent, even-tempered children who graciously accept the explanation while the angry ones storm off to some kind of "don't let the door hit you"-flavoured meta-commentary.

I hope not, my disdain would be transformed into pure hate.

Depicting the audience as children is just belittling as it is.

>>6705348
Wow, you really can't have civilized discussion in /co/ anymore.

>>6708558

I think it's just a smokescreen to show that people with concerns are in minority. Shitty tactic but it works.

>>6708643
>show that people with concerns are in minority
One post actually claims so. >>>/co/88377529

Discussion has become impossible, we have legit Aaron fanatics or at least trolls who really know how to kill it.

>>6708703
Wrong post in the sequence but same person.

>>>/co/88378552

>>6708719

I really suspect it's KC. It sounds a lot like him trying to stirr up shit.

>>6708643
>>6708703
I've noticed that some of the posts linking to that thread's OP and giving a positive reaction aren't ticking up my IP counter in 4chanX

>>6708742
I actually wonder if KC got into trouble after the previous thread. It went mostly unnoticed, but one of the responses to his big post on Marx being behind everything was a quiet little "Aaron trusted you".

>>6709269

If you look at the RPGAnon's post, Aaron mentioned he had spies in the threads. One of the spies?

>>6709316
This whole thing is getting more and more absurd.
Aaron is having a huge rectal hemorrhage and suddenly gets an army of white knights defending his mary sue self insert of all things.

>>6709316
Consensus seems to be that there were only two, KC and Selina.

Though I don't think I've seen CR post openly in an Endtown thread in ages. Not since he got told off for defending Marx. Wasn't he a pal of Aaron's?

>>6709662
No, I don't think so.

>>6709662

CR?

And I think Selina is actually one of the two posters. I know she has hots for Marx. She revealed it.

>>6709731
Chad Rocco.

You know, something's off. We have so many unique posters just saying "ABSOLUTE MADMAN, AARON." as if someone was desperately trying to show that everyone is happy with this outcome. Yet all the people that respond seem to follow the same respond pattern...

I think the thread is pretty much devastated at this point. A narrative is getting forged that everyone is 100% Okay with this.

>>6709728
Not badly done, but you missed the ellipsis between "No" and "I" that's necessary for the full effect.

>>6709731
Dude who said he'd written a foreword to one of Aaron's collections of Endtown strips at one point. He still posts under the name in other threads, but I haven't seen him in an Endtown thread for a while.

>>6709945
Yeah, it's weird how the thread went from furious waifu-fagging to suddenly loving the new page. I mean, where are all the people who should feel butthurt by this? Or is this them desperately trying not to appear butthurt because Aaron specifically called them out?

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>>6708643
>>6708703
>>6709185
>>6709945
>>6710213
For your consideration. Note how the two very similar "I love this" posts don't have an IP count increment next to them (if you want to see what such a thing looks like, the first and last posts in the chain do), meaning they're from people (or a person) who had already made a post in the thread. Not every post expressing approval is like this, but a few are.

>>6710230
Haha, yeah, it does look like some people are double-dipping their approval.

>>6710282

I mean it's not hard to get new IPs in the age of cellphones.

Eh I just think Endtown threads are pretty much dead at this point. Let's enjoy this one before we all leave.

>>6710431
At least we have /trash/...

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>>6710445

I mean man, I'm not gonna lie. I'm done at this point. I posted 5 paragraphs on why I think Aaron's writing went to shit with no hope of going back to being good. He has surrounded himself with Yes men that have a direct line to him and he doesn't want to hear people out.

Plus I feel just insulted with this comic... I dunno it feels to me so childish. Like Aaron Marx playing on my his nose straight into my face and going "WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO NOWWWW? YOU GOT TOOOOLDDDDD"

As I said - there's other endavours and things I can occupy myself with. We always have /trash/ though.

Here's a winter poster I was preparing. I might get it done by Christmas at this rate.

>>6710576
Very nice.

>>6710576
Calm your tits, the next chapter might be better.

>>6710649
You don't really believe this, do you?

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>>6710445
/trash/ does have better threads or they 404 in about 7 posts

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>>6710670
Hope is always the last thing to die.

>>>/co/88382633

Potential subtle canvassing by Aaron or a friend. If you answer, I'd advise it to be polite and succinct.

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>>6710863
You're getting too paranoid. Any of them could be KC or Selina, you shouldn't care too much about it or you'll end up avoiding everyone.

>>6710692
I guess the porn drives the kids away. /vp/ and /mlp/ went to Hell as soon as the blue board rules got enforced.

>>6710576

this is old as fuck, draw something new, faggot.

>>>/co/88383197
>>6710991
Party is over, folks. They're here.

I've been wondering... Aaron of 3+ years ago seems very different from Aaron today... did he slowly come to believe the hype surrounding himself as a writer, dismissing the occasional criticism (like the furore around Marx) as an anomaly? Only to be tripped up when he screwed up on trying to be daring and edgy, thus causing a lot of people to feel very uncharitable about him and to start pointing out flaws in his work that they'd avoided mentioning out of politeness before?

>>6711679
He's been going through some rough times but I get the feeling that if anything is to blame for Aaron changing in any negative way is his friendship with KC.

>>6711679

I think a lot of things happened - infections, too much positive feedback to the point of fanboyism, toxic friendships with some drawfags like KC...

In a way he felt like he was someone too important that he actually was and thought he would not lose his readers at all.

>>6711774
Whats the story with Aaron and KC anyway?

>>6711821
KC somehow got his phone number. They talked. The rest is history.

>>6711834

I think KC used his connections to get onto Endtown bandwagon. The thing is... I haven't seen him mentioning Endtown only after MLP ran dry.

>>6711865
I'm surprised that he still gets commissions, given his pristine reputation and work ethics.

>>6711865

he found out about endtown when people started commissioning kirbee from him, he took a liking of the comic and started showering Aaron with art. Remember the early threads? "I am working on all these pieces!!, you wont get to see them though! they are for Aaron only."

>>6711865
>>6711892
>Being this obsessed with KC
Come on, this is a nice thread. Don't bring that here.

>>6711922

No so obsessed. There's something wrong with the communication here as what we talk about doesn't get to Aaron. It's a weird game of Chinese whispers with someone trying to grab some brownie points for playing it.

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Specific OP-linking reaction posts with (or without) IP counts, after the point where I joined the thread and 4ChanX began to log things.

>>6712396
We will never know for sure and worrying over it won't change anything, they wouldn't admit it since it would defeat the purpose of it. Just ignore it and hope they get tired of it.

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Anyone else think Aaron might have shot himself in the foot here regarding people re-reading Endtown's archives and, more importantly, buying the dead-tree versions for the same purpose?

I was in the middle of a re-read, starting from the early strips, right up 'til Wally began reading the letter... when he hit us with this awful ending, it just kinda robbed me of all enthusiasm for reading it all again and I didn't even bother to bookmark my place. I feel like every time I look at Holly, now, I'll just be thinking of this, and how it looms over the end of the plot like a vulture in a tree.

Side note, does it seem like Aaron confuses "Unsatisfying for the characters" and "Unsatisfying for the reader", to anyone else? Kind of making the assumption that the first must inevitably incur the second, and that's fine as long as it's "realistic"?

>>6679065
Endtown is garbage.

>>6716746
>Side note, does it seem like Aaron confuses "Unsatisfying for the characters" and "Unsatisfying for the reader", to anyone else? Kind of making the assumption that the first must inevitably incur the second, and that's fine as long as it's "realistic"?

This is what I've seen someone on /co/ suggest. That it's a good ending for reasons like this. Overall it's been a very weird thread. I'm curious to see what'll happen wednesday and friday.

They're still at it. Another "OH MY GOD WHAT A MADMAN" post with no increment of the IP count.

>>6716746

I think there's a lot of dissonance between the Holly ending and let's say Flask or Allie. Flask pretty much killed herself by doing a stupid thing, Allie was a casualty of a riot, a thing that happens during unrest... Holly? "I'm not in imaginary paradise. Later!".

As someone said - the whole letter was just a cherry on top of a really bad explanaion. Combined with breaking his own set rules regarding dittos - them making sounds in the flashbacks was one, then Wally making an anti-ditto shield and fake Holly going through it.

And at this point I think he is totally confused in what is good and what is bad. I don't know if Endtown will ever recover.

>>6716933
The thing I liked about Flask and Allie, and even Al when he died briefly is the fact that their ends all represented something.

Flask was the obvious wrath story, Allie like you said was part of the circumstances, the victim of the massacre.

Holly is I HAVE TO GO NOW MY PLANET NEEDS ME

>>6717005
Yeah, the abrupt nature of it makes me really dislike it. I hope Aaron will adress it in some way, rather than thinking everyone who disagrees is a waifufag.

>>6716842
>I'm curious to see what'll happen wednesday and friday.

Worst End: More passive-aggressive saltiness from Aaron via Marx, entirely based on strawmen.

Bad End: More passive-aggressive saltiness from Aaron via Marx, explaining how (Aaron thinks) we're all wrong - at least we might find out if he reads these threads.

Good End: Aaron uses this to tweak the ending somewhat, either by dropping some kind of revelation (ie: Holly lied and she actually stayed as part of a bargain with the computer to ensure her friends' freedom in return for her captivity as its "wife") or (YMMV) by showing that Marx took Holly somewhere real where she could really heal.

[spoiler]Secret End: Marx admits the his tale was pure bullshit and Aaron attempts to do something completely different with the characters down the road in a year or two/whenever he's feeling better. [/spoiler]

>>6717097
Damn, forgot spoilers don't work here... oh well, just pretend.

>>6717093
That really irked me, it's such a simplistic look on your audience.

I get if all you're getting critically is waifufags but don't obviously lash out using your material as the medium lol.

>>6717097
>showing that Marx took Holly somewhere real where she could really heal.

You know, this could work if it's a set-up for a point later on where he shows the arbitrary nature of a superbeing simply saving the people he likes, while others (like Allie) literally get to die in an alley (shit, Allie died in an alley...). That'd be decent commentary on author-creation relationships and how it's close to the role of a god. It would also be a reversal of itself by the sappy "good endings" suddenly being a representation of how truly awful and arbitrary the world of Endtown is.

Imagine that. A God who saves His children based on whether they have a nice caboose or not.

>>6717114
It's somewhat warranted with Marx already being established as an author extension. I just hope this is all in good fun and that Aaron doesn't actually believe all criticism is because people are upset about their waifu's.

>>6717157
>It's somewhat warranted with Marx already being established as an author extension.
Well, fair, I'm biased because Marx is a shit character in general and I hate author extensions.

I just got prequel Star Wars vibes out of it, I get it's still a comic but it went from such a serious thing to such a retardedly lighthearted joke that it completely destroyed any impact the story had thus far for me.

And when it's addressing the audience in such a blatant way, it's just weak, cheap, hack writing.

>>6717157
>You know, this could work if it's a set-up for a point later on where he shows the arbitrary nature of a superbeing simply saving the people he likes, while others (like Allie) literally get to die in an alley (shit, Allie died in an alley...). That'd be decent commentary on author-creation relationships and how it's close to the role of a god. It would also be a reversal of itself by the sappy "good endings" suddenly being a representation of how truly awful and arbitrary the world of Endtown is.
>
>Imagine that. A God who saves His children based on whether they have a nice caboose or not.

Well, I'm pretty sure Marx did quite like Holly as a person. Another sign that Aaron didn't think of her as "fake" back then? I mean, Marx would know... anyway, they seemed to get along better than he and Wally did.

>>6717175

> I just got prequel Star Wars vibes out of it, I get it's still a comic but it went from such a serious thing to such a retardedly lighthearted joke that it completely destroyed any impact the story had thus far for me.

I have an even bigger accusation. It's the reversal of Blade Runner ending controversy with the author choosing the Hollywood sweet ending over the darker but more open one. It completely ruins the gravitas of the situation. But what can we do.

>>6717182
We can bullshit about it on /trash/

Which is perfect for me.

Either way the ending would have been shit, the entire arc was writing himself into a horrible corner. It reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy, though it came later, but specifically the part how it's this kinda quirky goofy movie, and then every now and then there's a jarring switch as people reveal parts of who they are.

Not a perfect analogy, and of course Guardians isn't the perfect portrayal of it, but I like that, it's nice, it dips just far enough into the heavy stuff without falling into it and loosing focus, and then is lifted up with a bit of dark comedy, and then light comedy, and you're back on track with the same tone as before and a better appreciation and understanding of the characters.

This arc to me is what happens when it falls too far over. It's not a quirky trip that suddenly goes off the rails with a madman trying to kill you, a touch of sacrifice lesson tossed in, and nice closure, or a stubborn mouse giving some comedic tough love only to reveal she's just as hurt as him and they come to terms with it in each other.

It's just a constant grind, and not the good grind where you're trying to metaphor some aspect of human life, the grind that just goes on, that starts from seemingly nowhere, retcons the entire lesson learned before, fuck coming to terms with who you are, I got a holodeck, and ends with the author taking a stab at the audience.

Awful, awful stuff.

>>6717241
>This arc to me is what happens when it falls too far over. It's not a quirky trip that suddenly goes off the rails with a madman trying to kill you, a touch of sacrifice lesson tossed in, and nice closure, or a stubborn mouse giving some comedic tough love only to reveal she's just as hurt as him and they come to terms with it in each other.
>
>It's just a constant grind, and not the good grind where you're trying to metaphor some aspect of human life, the grind that just goes on, that starts from seemingly nowhere, retcons the entire lesson learned before, fuck coming to terms with who you are, I got a holodeck, and ends with the author taking a stab at the audience.

I guess you don't go Full Grimdark for the same reason you don't go Full Retard.

>>6717175
Well, I'm at an advantage, because the ending already didn't have any impact on me. That's my entire problem with it. I know Endtown as a hardhitting comic, and that was still true for most of the flashback. But then it petered out. I expected there to be some fucking *point* to this year-long sequence that seemed to break rules established earlier. But there wasn't. It was just "this is why Holly is crazy, now she's gone". Yeah, no shit Aaron, the end of the world in a storm of mutation and radiation made Holly crazy. The whole thing about her obsessing over the lost kid just seems... cheap. The ending is cheap. It's all soa opera levels of bullshit.

So this with Marx? It's better than that, and I hope it leads to a proper conclusion.

>>6717293
Anything with Marx is hand waved though, that's why omnipotent characters suck.

Inb4 Q, yeah he was also shit, he just had a team of very talented writers behind him to make you at a glance feel like what was happening was impactful.

I agree with everything else, minus when it went to shit, that was the start of the arc for me honestly.

>>6717293
Honestly, at this point it looks to me like he just took certain aspects of Holly that he'd established earlier in a far darker direction than originally intended because he got tired of the character and wanted to write her out, with the arc where he did so getting away from him somewhat.

I think the way he's framing it now is just to save face and maintain his image as a clever writer.

>>6717321
Fiction is all smoke and mirrors, anyway. Q worked not because we thought he would actually kill the crew, but because his personality clashed enormously with Picard and the ideals of the Federation in general. Right at the start we *know* Q is talking shit with his "mankind is dangerous" stuff. Q is a trickster god who uses his powers to teach people lessons, at least in TNG. In VOY he's abused as just another worshipper of Janeway.

In fact, Tapestry is kind of on par with an Endtown-esque flashback. But Q is enigmatic, so when he ribs Picard about being a brash idiot who got stabbed in the back, we believe him. So when the fairly standard lesson becomes apparent that the way to "beat" the scenario was to do the same damn thing all over again, it's refreshing. It makes a good point about Picard's character and life in general.

But most of all Q is enjoyable. Whe, in Tapestry, Picard dies and meets "God" in the "afterlife", first you see the typical Picard. He's in awe, and accepting, he takes the mysterious figure's hands, the figure steps forward, and it's Q! And he says "Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead." That's Q trying -and succeeding- to get a rise out of Picard.

Q claims he's God, but the claim itself is brought in a way that's obviously false. Marx basically *is* God, yet no-one ever points it out. Picard, on the other hand, says "I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed." Q is a divisive figure in the Trek universe. People acknowledge him, and his power, and while his motives are obscure, he acts in a consistent manner. Which is to fuck with people.

Trek deals a lot with omnipotent beings, but somehow does it right most of the time. They seem like real characters, with their own motivations, certain conditions to their powers. Marx is just the one being, and he grabs the spotlight every time he appears without really doing anything with it.

>>6717404
I fear Aaron might finally be suffering from the typical webcomic disease of having one's narrative run away from one, and mutating into something it wasn't intended to be. I blame it on the relative isolation in which webcomic artists work, and the challenge of having an unlimited canvas before them. A lot of webcomic artists seem convinced they need to show every tiny moment in their characters' lives, and that kind of happened in the flashback.

And they definitely suffer fatigue related to their own comics. Quite often it ends in a comic going on "hiatus", like Prequel. The artist just stops and never returns to it.

>>6717450
Yeah, that's the long form version of what I meant by Q succeeding isn't about Q, it's the writers behind him. They actually make use of him and question what such a being is and means in the universe, and rather than just being super goofy and opening up a hole in space so our heroes can escape into tropeland, he's much more the foil.

You're right, Marx steals the show, handsome, tall, whimsical, super smart, control of everything, always has a way out, and in the end he really is none of these things, the readers are just TOLD to believe these things.

And at the end of it, he's a proxy, how mary sue can you get for yourself.

>>6717450

Remember how basically everytime Marx does something it's for "Greater good" without us even getting a hint of what it is. Normally writers hint of things to come in some sort of a manner, leave pieces lying around.

Endtown political shift? We see it bringing out the WORST in people yet it's "Greater good!". There's nothing to hint any kind of a good side to all of this.

What about Flask death? Why was "Greater Good" again the lesson there. It just doesn't make sense if you look at it. There's no punchline to Greater Good. It's like a meal we're waiting for but we're getting served appetizers over and over again. After a while you grab the waiter and ask "And my entrée?"

>>6717463

I think a lot of this was intended to be it's just that artist gets bored with a narrative after a while and wants to switch gears. When they do that, usually the twist is quite headscratching and polarizes a lot of people. Or just the comic goes on haitus for long amounts of time....

>>6717488
>You're right, Marx steals the show, handsome, tall, whimsical, super smart, control of everything, always has a way out, and in the end he really is none of these things, the readers are just TOLD to believe these things.

>>6717492
>Remember how basically everytime Marx does something it's for "Greater good" without us even getting a hint of what it is. Normally writers hint of things to come in some sort of a manner, leave pieces lying around.
>
>Endtown political shift? We see it bringing out the WORST in people yet it's "Greater good!". There's nothing to hint any kind of a good side to all of this.
>
>What about Flask death? Why was "Greater Good" again the lesson there. It just doesn't make sense if you look at it. There's no punchline to Greater Good. It's like a meal we're waiting for but we're getting served appetizers over and over again. After a while you grab the waiter and ask "And my entrée?"

Aaron's answer to this always seems to be something along the lines of "trust me", but you can only be told that so many times before it starts to sound hollow.

>>6717492
My biggest fear is he's going to resort to the "all a dream" trope.

Like he's going to bring everyone back to life at the end and go SEE, YALL DID TERRIBLE THINGS AND LET IT GET OUT OF HAND, NOW YOU ALL APPRECIATE LIFE MORE, I AM SUCH MERCIFUL GOD

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You all have mostly valid concerns and good points but don't you think that you're overreacting by switching to full disdain mode over this? I think it's best to wait and see if Aaron makes the best from this experience or makes the worst of it. It's yet too early to say that he's "lost it", as some of you put it. He's human, we all make mistakes. The important thing is that we learn from them.

Acting salty over it does nobody any good. You should also see into contacting Aaron and voicing your concerns. Incite the change you want to see.

>>6716853
I noticed it this time. That's a pretty shitty thing to do.

>>6717919
Liberal detected.

It's criticism, not full on disdain. Also lots of people have tried contacting him, he ignores them and says trust me.

>>6717919

There needs to be willingness to learn and understanding of error. Right now what I'm seeing is him lashing out at fans either by his lieutenants or by the author himself.

The problem with Aaron is that if you try to show him that "Yeah it does not work" he will go into "Trust me" or "It makes sense later". As we see here it does not. A lot of people have been waiting on this resolution and on top of that the story itself broke few rules that Aaron already established. So few people are not all too happy trusting him again.

No one is saying to pick up the torches and burn his house down but they're not that happy with how they're being pictured or treated as - literal children as the newest comic suggests.

>>6717919
This is "I am the sole voice of reason" logic. Pro tip: You're not. Most posts here have voiced nuanced, well-argumented opinions, and the vast majority of them have either made no statement about their continued patronage of the comic, or have actually speculated about what will happen now, while stating various preferences.

Reasoning from emotion sucks, but showing emotion while reasoning is not the same. It's a shitty meme that anyone who ever shows any displeasure at anything is immediately "salty" and acting irrationally.

As for contacting Aaron, I'm sure he has his hands full. I don't know him, I never commented on his site, I am not subscribed to the newsletter. My voice is just another one of thousands. If he wants my opinion, it's right here.

And I am saying that I am concerned that the comic has jumped the shark. I don't know for sure, yet. But I've read a lot of webcomics, and most of them have some point that they pass where the author loses sight of his/her own narrative. With how long it's been running Endtown has been overdue for that. I hope this is not it, but it wouldn't surprise me.

>>6717969
Yeah but it's very out of character for Aaron. The comic is pretty long and there's nothing quite as egregious. All I'm saying is that it could be a one-time thing.

>>6717954
>>6718042
I'm not saying that every criticism is like that or simply talking about being angry (I've made some angry comments myself), there is some genuine salt thrown here and there and I think it's something that needs to be acknowledged before it gets worse. This is a pretty good discussion, I don't want the quality of the comments to suffer because of that.

In other words, let's just stay civil, okay?

>>6718097

You should post that in /v/ thread y'know. Everyone's civil here and providing good arguments.

There's no much salt here as there's feeling somehow lost investment. Like when watching Lost. People were hooked on because Lost did a lot of things differently and it was interesting. Then we get the ending and yeah. Middle finger to everyone. Mind you Lost ending was a result of a lot of factors, here you have one man a lot of us would listen to some voiced concerns and well it proved to be otherwise.

This is also crushing the repeated mantra of "He really cares and listens to his fans" and turning it to "He doesn't need to listen to a group of autists" all of a sudden. I know he didn't say it himself but one of his close friends did.

>>6718083
The salt seems mostly confined to /co/, if you ask me, and I'm glad for it. I think /trash/'s opinion is well measured, and touches neither extreme. We don't have waifuffaggotry, we don't have "THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN" posts, we don't have any real bullshit. Just a general consensus that the ending of this arc was kind of shitty, and that in retrospect signs were already visible before now that Aaron was slipping up.

>>6718132
>Lost

I watched the first season on TV, and by the end of it declared the show to be bullshit. My sister kept pestering me that the second season was good, and they answered questions and stuff, so I watched the second half of that. Came away with the same judgement and never watched it again.

Then, years later, the bomb burst. Made me pretty damn pleased with myself for calling it after the first season.

>>6718045
>very out of character
No actually it's always been in his character, it's just the first time he's REALLY written himself into a corner.

Technically tho, not even the first time, he DID use Marx as a get out of kill zone free card.

>>6719698

In a thread on Friday someone close to Aaron started sperging out how much Marx did behind scenes setting up certain events. Such as even "putting" a tanker there to find. And driving Wally towards the coast as some sort of an End Game.

In other words: The Marx did it.

>>6719916
Well, maybe this was the point of the Milk Trial.

>>6719933

Oh yeah how can we forget that...

>>6719916
Proofs? Link to thread? Halp.

>>6720619

>>>/co/88322008

>>6720619
I can confirm that anon isn't lying. Someone suggested that Holly was a liability and had to be removed for the Greater Good(tm).

>>6719916
>someone close to Aaron
>>6720728
>Someone
It was KC. You can tell by the filename format on the pic - it comes from the thread-ripping program he uses.

>>6720070
Yeah, that's about how I felt. We'd already worked out it wasn't a plain old virus, or at least some of us had anyway.

Nice work, Kazen.

>>6721560
That, too. <3 Manna.

>>6722445
>>6721560
>>6720070
>>6710576

I'll miss Kazen's characters. I'll miss DK's characters and I'll miss Suule's characters. Shame really how badly the main thread has gone, there's little hope of drawfags other than Penanon and Jamil ever contributing. Both of them seem to be focused more on fanart though than OCs.

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>>6722592
Some crossover of one of Suule's oc's and one of mine.

>>6722709

Such cute possums!

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>>6722445
Ohh, she had a fan? Heck, I drew up a set of Doom portraits of her, ha.

>>6723411
I think your characters have their fans, yeah. And those are nice.

>>6722709
Penny a cute. CUTE! Val ain't bad, either.

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>>6723768

>>6723818
Adorable. Is that a pouch I spy?

>>6723900
Yup

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>>6722445
An early sketch of her in the fancomic I had planned.

>>6724030
I assume it's no longer a thing?

Man, DK was going to do one of these, too, but it seems to have just kind of petered out... is DK around, still? Even here, perhaps? Really feels like he's lost his enthusiasm for Endtown... don't know whether it was the way this arc was going, or the state of the /co/ threads. Seems like he switched to Out Of Placers, much like Akunim seems to have gone over to Latchkey.

>>6724206
For the time being, yeah. I'm more devoting my energies to my original universe right now.

>>6724206
Can't blame them, really. Also, Out Of Placers just updated.

>>6724315
Rock on. I'll keep an eye out for anything you do.

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>>6724531
Lil promo of it.

>>6720711
>>6721921
Who's KC? I need to dive deeper.

>>6725097
Shaun Howell a.k.a. King-Cheetah. A popular furry who is notorious for his shitty work ethic. He got in contact with Aaron and they somehow became friends.

>>6725097
>>6725190

Also goes by Marmalade Jane when he's doing cub stuff (wonder if Aaron knows about that...)

Long time furry artist known mostly for pinups and smut, used to be a semi-big deal.

>>6725190
>>6725241
So how does he know what's going on with Aaron and shit? Does he actually have proofs of his claims?

>>6725432
They talk by phone. Aaron himself confirmed it.

>>6725432
He talks to the guy regularly and I think he's close enough to actually visit him. I think that was him giving reports on Aaron's health recently.

For what it's worth I think they are legit friends, I just think KC abuses his friendship to some degree.

Christ, am I glad I don't go in for furfaggotry drama. All this shit sounds terrible.

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All those pictures of Kirbee? They were for Aaron.

KC's waifu is Roxie.

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Latest Doc Rat.

The little talking doll's name is "Milli".

>>6725492
I dunno, just feels like there's a lot of stuff people are taking for granted with no proof.

I just wanna know WHY they're taking it for granted. Is there proof I'm unawares of or is it just his anecdotes shooting the shit with Aaron.

>>6727219
I was wondering how he was taking the whole thing, being one of the first Holly fans. He seems to be a good friend of Aaron too though so I guess it wasn't a surprise to him either.

>>6727507
See >>6725465.

>>6728289
I remember getting the impression that it actually was a surprise for him, when reading his GoComics comments. He's a frequent poster there, and seems to prefer to read the comic without being given spoilers by Aaron.

>>6728307
So it's all speculation from one of Aarons friends.

>>6728638
No, -Aaron- himself has mentioned KC in his e-mails.

>>6728716
That's great but when he talks about something secret to only him and Aaron does he actually have any proofs?

If not, yes its just friend speculation, could be honest, could be him fucking with you.

>>6728749
They generally seem to pan out.

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>re-reading when they travel from Unity to the ship
>part where they fight over Clive
It's not the same knowing the original version is much better.

>>6729084
Well lemme kno when somethin real comes up.

So an I alone in feeling like Aaron was taking a direct swing at part of his audience even before Marx showed up just now?

I mean he had the arc's pseudo-antagonist practically shout "MAI WAIFU!" and then we literally saw Holly's ship vanish...

>>6728749

Nah, his super secret spoilers tend to be true 90% of the time. I think he knows the story in advance, he just loves showing off how important he is.

>>6712396

This looks like one person on a half-hour cycling dynamic IP. If you look at the thread, they even take a seven hour break for a nap.

>>6731493

I mean I'm not even surprised. The messages all sounded too similar. I think it's basically viral shit at this point.

The problem is that his big fan is trying to create some positive feedback for the sole purpose of re-affirming the author is right.

I wonder if the person was also doing the whole kirbee/holly antagonism just to keep the interest up.

>>6731837
That would be some next-level autism.

>>6732076
I also believe that's what happened. Someone was trying to make it seem like the complainers were a minority, for whatever reason.

New update up... Doc is gonna have a talk with Aaron Marx, also we see the sky-lights again.

Yep we're back in Endtown.

>>6732907
Who are you and how do you know this.

>>6732958

It just updated, man

>>6732958
Seriously? Or are you just mocking the guy who incredulously keeps asking stuff about Aaron and KC?

>>6733012
>>6732971
Where are your proofs?

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>>6733019

>>6732907
One the one hand, Marx. On the other, Doc.

But boy, Marx is up to his old tricks again. I'm really wondering whether Aaron will adress the situation further, but this update is honestly kind of useless. It's a Marx joke. Yay.

>>6733056
Marx is a shit character, don't talk about him like he's anything else.

>>6733056
It's a transition. It would be disjointed to simply jump to Marx talking with Doc.

And if it was Marx going to see Doc he would be only one driving the plot and the other characters reacting to him, do you want that?

>>6733056

The problem is that this is really reaching some terrible meta levels. I dunno, it's like watching a thousand plates of spaghetti flying up in the air, getting spilled all over.

>>6733084
Look, Aaron rushed through the end of Holly's arc. As far as I'm concerned, he can hurry it the fuck up if he's that pressed for time, and I have no patience for shitty jokes about Marx's reality-bending autism.

>>6724206

So all we have left is Pen Anon, who's made it his mission to try and cheer up the fanbase (bless him), occasional and increasingly-infrequent visits from Leon and Jamil, and KC, who mostly seems interested in trolling lately.

It's a poor lookout for Endtown.

>>6734511
At least it was fun while it lasted.

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>>6734511

Jamil has his own thing...
It seems Kazen is starting his own comic soon and I've found this on Suule's tumblr talking about "Test for a comic".

If one thing is good is that Endtown pushed others to do their own comic things.

>>6734748
I can't help but wonder if the effort put into those comics will now have some element of a resolution to "do it better than Aaron did".

Kazen? Suule?

I'd ask if Jamil was here, but he seems too damn chill to be in here with us, complaining.

>>6734748
>Suule's tumblr talking about "Test for a comic".

that nigga takes years to finish a single pic, how is he gonna work on a comic?

>>6734797

Kazen's comic? Well so far we know it's gonna be post apocalyptic and scavanger-themed. Seem also to have a set protag. There's a lot of stuff on his FA and I think he can talk more.

Suule's comic? Except for that one image there is nothing. Guy rarely announces or says anything in regard of his future projects.

>>6735033

Yeah... which is weird. He has spurts of activity and then goes silent for 1-2 months. Either he'll be working with a buffer or something. Might as well ask him on FA or tumblr if you want to.

Also this style looks very sketch compared to his regular stuff. No black backgrounds either. Quite unusual for him.

>>6735116
>if you want to.

i honestly don't care, i just found funny how anyone believes he can run a comic when he can barely draw at all.

>>6735116
>Kazen's Comic
Yeah, I can plug it a little more if the thread's cool with it. The basic idea is, it's on an alien planet that was partially terraformed eons ago, but since fell victim to a mysterious war. Some Planet of the Apes (only with rats), some Risk of Rain, that sort of thing.

>>6726622

who asked? and most importantly, who cares?

>>6735332

I say go for it. Other than one person sperging about Suule, people are curious. The thread is heading for extinction anyway so might as well fill it with something interesting.

>>6735621
I think there'll probably be another thread after this, I feel like we're going to want to discuss the next week and a half of strips, at least. I really want to see if Aaron can salvage this ending in just four strips...

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>>6735621
I'm still ironing out it's look, but here's basically what I'm gunning for.

>>6735690

Question is can you reasonably do this kind of stuff in time.

>>6735332
>only with rats
Well that sounds keen. I like rats...

>>6735690
That's pretty darn nice, I love the colours.

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>>6735690
A b/w work in progress.

>>6735788
Nice atmosphere and details. Good sense of environment design.

Some major symbolism going on there with the marking on the lower front of the governor's coat, I take it...

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>>6735885
Yeah actually. It's actually their government's insignia, and I even have their political history/structure thought up. He represents the Protectorate, one of the more powerful nations in the world. He was somewhat inspired by Baron Harkonnen.

Pic is the Protagonist, Shalara. Hers are the other race in this world, which I half-jokingly call 'Space Gelflings'.

>>6735975
Ah. Interesting.

>Baron Harkonnen
Neat... book, movie or both?

>Space Gelflings
I'm hip. World needs more Gelflings... So are the rats native and the SGs are aliens, or...?

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>>6736047
Bit of both.

Both technically are aliens to this world in their origins, but have lived there so long as to essentially be native, as both current races arose there. The rats far outstrip the SG's numerically, to where every civilization of theirs faces a serious population problem, and each deals with it differently.

>>6736223
There is still native, 'alien' life (weird as that is to say), but they all were forced underground during the colonization. Of course, now that that's mostly gone, expect them to try and retake their planet.

>>6736223
>>6736268
Definitely keeping an eye out for this when it's ready. These are some cool concepts.

>>6735116
>>6734797

It's gonna be 1870-1890s themed. I have a fair bit of sketches and writing done some far. I just need a little bit of research done in regards to social trends at the time and get a person that can speak proper French, Russian and German.

It's gonna focus more on a lot of transcended aspects such as rationality vs spirituality (very common topic of discussion for that time really). Luckily I won't have that much to do at the university to devote a day or two to work on it. The looser artstyle enabled me to finish a frame such as that in 2-3 hours tops.

>>6736601
Keep us posted, man, sounds interesting.

Made a new thread here, linking so at least some of us don't have to go looking:

>>6737409