Rusty & Co.
Monstrous Misadventures! Updated every Wednesday at noon, EST.
Follow Rusty & Co.!
BOOKMARK
Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
Did anybody not see this coming?
I look forward to seeing what genres we get this time around.
Cube won’t be involved this time, so we won’t get cubist. Pity. But we may still get some cool ones.
Some people even called it in the comments.
Second Twist: Captain Plaidbeard was never involved directly at all.
Yikes!
Saving throws against Insanity, anyone?
I don’t think it’s going to be Call of Cthulhu
Honestly, that’s where I was hoping this story would go when the chapter started.
Any bets on what’s coming, folks?
A more useful genre in her opinion.
Probably neat visual, going by what happened when her father and Mimic fought over it.
I’m predicting some cartoon comedy, horror, and soap opera drama.
Cyperpunk? I’ll bet some Rustyverse cryptocurrency on that. Lichcoin? Gnollcoin? Aetherium?
I’m guessing AM will change it to South Park at some point.
Considering what just went on…I belt noirs cousin, hitchcockian suspense.
Well, she is cornered. So whatever allows a villain to win. Like Diabolik or Lupin III.
At least, they found the belt.
One objective accomplished!
Those green rays and (kinda?) Kirby dots …
… she’s about to Hulk out, isn’t she?
Transforming into something more deadly is something she can already do with her druid levels. This might just make it more effective.
I wanna see mimic use the belt to go dark souls. Teach them to fear mimics!
Intimidation and overt displays of force aren’t generally Mimic’s style. He’s more of a “beat them at fencing by turning into a literal fence” kind of guy.
The way Princess is shouting a warning at her, I kinda wonder if this change of genre might not turn out as much in her favor as our plaid-haired antagonist seems to think it will.
It may just be a reaction to not wanting to go to a new genre.
Yeah, I don’t read it as a warning. If someone pulls a gun on you and you shout “No, wait!” it’s usually not because you’re worried that something bad is going to happen to *them*.
It could also be that bad things in general could happen. REAL BAD things.
Remember that Plaidbeard agreed to a pirate duel because it was safer.
The “Re-Genre!” caption made me realize something. It’s a belt of re-genre-ation.
This was meant to be a reply to FlashNeko but the Captcha timed out and I didn’t hit the right reply button the second time.
The fact that in the majority of possible genres distressed princesses get rescued by heroes is what tells me the new genre might not turn out as much in her favor as our plaid-haired antagonist seems to think it will.
She needs to find something where either she is the heroine, which is tricky when up against a genuine princess and she made Amaddie into a street wise little orphan girl in the previous regenreing, or where the villain wins and she is the villain.
And she can’t use horror. Boxford is a shape shifting aberration and shape shifting aberrations trump crocodilians and sharks on the horror monster scale. The villain can win in horror, but the villain isn’t her.
Tragedy is similarly a poor choice. She wants revenge on Boxford, but what’s his tragic flaw? I’m not even sure. What’s the number one most popular tragic flaw in the history drama and literature? Hubris. Who’s entire character is built around hubris? Tarta.
There are genres that can not exist at a PG-13 or PG-18 (aka R) rating that could potentially suit Tarta’s needs, but for meta reasons they’re off the table.
…
Unless she is willing to give up on direct vengeance and turn this into a courtroom drama. She can’t kill Boxford that way but she might be able to make him buy her a new railship and get a restraining order.
“This was meant to be a reply to FlashNeko but the Captcha timed out and I didn’t hit the right reply button the second time.”
Wait, how did this sentence get here if you weren’t paying attention when you hit Post? Can you edit comments?
“The fact that in the majority of possible genres distressed princesses get rescued by heroes”
Well, the majority of genres that have princesses to begin with. Many don’t.
I’m not even so sure about that, either. Many genres (like noir), if they feature rich people at all, will generally feature them as greedy amoral elitists causing trouble for the underclass. Other genres will focus on the petty politics and backstabbing that goes on in the royal court, with princesses just as guilty and just as vulnerable as anyone else in an environment where the hunter can easily become the hunted and “protagonism” may just be a question of who the camera happened to follow.
Sure, in high fantasy, princesses are commonly well-meaning-but-chronically-distressed. But that’s just one genre.
Then there’s the thing, though, that this princess never stuck to her native genre conventions even before the genres started getting changed. Actually, come to think of it, maybe her genre-defying abilities are a strength that can be leveraged in this battle…
“There are genres that can not exist at a PG-13 or PG-18 (aka R) rating that could potentially suit Tarta’s needs, but for meta reasons they’re off the table.”
Really? How? I can’t see how turning the genre into porn could possibly benefit her. Unless she wants to rape someone, maybe, but she seems squarely on the “kill” side of things regardless of how much graphic detail is shown.
There’s gorefests, but while it bumps up your rating, that’s really more of an artistic style choice added to another genre such as action or horror. If she does that, the gore is just as likely to be hers as someone else’s.
“She can’t kill Boxford that way but she might be able to make him buy her a new railship and get a restraining order.”
Wouldn’t Boxford be more likely to get a restraining order against the crazy dame trying to kill him?
“Wait, how did this sentence get here if you weren’t paying attention when you hit Post? Can you edit comments?”
Yeah, you never noticed? When you post, it starts a 5-minute countdown.
I don’t see it. Maybe it’s my browser settings, or the fact that I don’t have an official Gravatar account.
“And she can’t use horror. Boxford is a shape shifting aberration and shape shifting aberrations trump crocodilians and sharks on the horror monster scale. The villain can win in horror, but the villain isn’t her.”
You know, it occurs to me that Myrmarch Antropas from last chapter would have made a better horror villain than Tarta. She was a creepy inhuman creature that uses necromancy and mind control, has numerous minions, had the heroes trapped in her own domain (the hotel) before she made her move, and was powerful enough that she could only be stopped by the actions of her fellow myrmarchs, rather than the chapter’s official heroes.
Yuan-Tiffany in particular also showed the typical characteristics of a horror hero, in that she got through challenges more on quick thinking and guts than any discernable combat skills. The fact that she also happens to be a snake-woman is largely irrelevant.
Rusty? Yes, he’s a really weird bug-like creature, but he’s also explicitly uninterested in eating anything not made of metal. Not a horror monster.
Madeline is pretty much the opposite of a horror monster, but she’s also too good of a fighter to be a proper horror hero. The only role a character like her usually plays in a horror story is to get eaten first to show how serious the threat is. Luckily, since the genre wasn’t quite horror at the time, she got away with “merely” being petrified.
If Antropas had the belt, rather than Tarta, she may actually have won and the comic would be over…
There’s an element of circularity in there. People in distress tend to need rescue.
There are plenty of fairy tales in the folklore in which the prince (or other hero) in distress is rescued by the heroine, princess or not.
(Meant as a response to Atarlost. Is it contagious?)
Male rescuees happen, sure. I wouldn’t generally call them “heroes”.
I also question whether kissing a frog really counts as a heroic action, but hey, at least you’re legitimately the rescuer here. (Most woman-rescuing-a-man fairy tales emphasize her cleverness in finding a solution to a problem that can’t be solved with brute force, though.)
However, “People in distress tend to need rescue.” isn’t a universal truth. Villains are usually pretty distressed when they realize they’re losing, but that rarely inspires anyone to a daring last-second rescue.
I don’t think Princess is likely to be kissing any bullywugs, no matter what genre we end up in. If she gets the belt, she might prefer a Bruce Lee or Kung Fu genre. If Stabs gets it, would she go for a genre where a halfling with a powerful artifact is the hero? Doesn’t seem plausible. A-M would certainly prefer Action with lots of explosions, or maybe Horror with a high body count.