Can we talk about this? Last thread got deleted because hurr americans shitposting

Can we talk about this? Last thread got deleted because hurr americans shitposting.

Is this good writing or bad writing? I can't really tell.

The biggest, longest-running theme of this comic is that successful people will always be bad and unhappy, and people who stagnate and have no ambition are the only good and sincere people around. See:

>Park lands the job he was working hard to get and suddenly becomes a dick
>Marek finishes his thesis and graduates, breaks up with Hanna because they want different things, and he's put on a bus
>Hanna tries to get over her depression by baking and taking up running, then abandons running because it wasn't an easy band-aid and decides she'd rather be a "witch" and unhappy
>When Marigold is succeeding at her job, she's treated as shallow and desperately trying to fill her empty life with as many instagram-worthy experiences as possible
>the journalist Eve tries to fuck is the same--successful but ultimately trying to fill a void
>Eve's Asian friends move on without her, grow up, get married, have kids, and are suddenly jerks because she made no attempt to contact them in two years

meanwhile, the more Eve regresses and becomes childish and obnoxious, the more she's treated as a sympathetic hero/victim.

If Eve were a real person, of course she'd perceive everyone successful around her to be selfish jerks. Everyone is the hero of their own story. But when these people are portrayed as jerks *objectively* in the comic, is that good writing or bad writing? Is it good writing to portray everything as the protagonist sees it, or is it better to portray everything as it is and have your shitty protagonist react to it as if their projections really are the objective truth?

I can't answer that because I don't know if they actually are intended to be objective jerks. You'd have to ask the author.

>americans shitposting

With Brits and Aussies around, we're a drop in the ocean.

I think Hanna's happiness/unhappiness isn't exactly hinged on work, it's her ability to relate to other people.
Hanna has been industrious since her first appearance, her problems come from wanting life other people to be as manageable as the dough she kneeds.

Follow up, Park was always a dick.

I never understood why so many people thought he was a dick.

He was right when he asked Eve if she wanted to be a grocery store clerk forever. He was right when he told Greg to get over his victim complex. He made an effort to be friends with Hanna when Hanna was shitty to him essentially because he was Eve's friend before she was. He told Eve he cheated on her in college, apologized for it, and said they could move forward without secrets, and Eve said "okay" when she had literally kissed Will not a day before.

>Is this good writing or bad writing? I can't really tell.

I think it's fine. I'm really enjoying the comic in color. Everything pops out a lot more, and a little bit of /u/ never hurt.

>it has muh dykes so it's fine :)

>The biggest, longest-running theme of this comic is that successful people will always be bad and unhappy, and people who stagnate and have no ambition are the only good and sincere people around

I think you are misunderstanding things right here. Octopus Pie is a slice of life, with people getting happy or sad depending on what happens to them over the years the comic covers. An actual long-running theme here is that sometimes you need to move on and make your own decisions, even if it means breaking up and losing sight of other people because that's how life goes. But you're right when you say that everyone is the hero of their own story.

From the top of my head, Hannah becomes more adult and realizes that not everything and everyone will always go her way, Will stops being a drug dealer and tries to stabilize his life through his relationship with Eve and his new work with Hannah, Park was always a dick but as says, he was right on some points. Marigold changed a lot as a character and matured from being Hannah's "friend" to being her own person with her own aspirations in life. She works an office job that doesn't look very exciting, but at least she does her thing. As for this current (final ?) arc, Eve finally got out of the store she slaved in for years, and a bit before that she figured out she wanted to be with Will instead of fucking every guy she meets like the immature slut she is. Like many other characters in OP, she manages to step into adulthood with all the insecurities and bad times it implies instead of staying indefinitely in the same place.

You're presented with stories that have several sides, and characters with flaws and attitudes you might not like. It's not about pleasing the readers by wallowing in self-pity like many comics on the internet tend to do. It's about showing that everyone faces hard times in life, and everyone has to find their own solutions to move forward. Even if they don't seem to go very far.

>her problems come from wanting life other people to be as manageable as the dough she kneeds
what?

She tries to keep people around her and manage their lives as if she knew what's better for them. I think that's where her beef with Marigold comes from, that Hannah was always trying to bring everything back to herself and didn't treat others seriously enough or brushed off their problems. Could be wrong though.

>Eve finally got out of the store she slaved in
it's implied that Olly burned down the store and forcing Eve to move forward for once in her life was at least the final straw that made him do it

>Octopus Pie is a slice of life, with people getting happy or sad depending on what happens to them over the years the comic covers
perhaps the theme of successful = bad and stagnation = good wasn't an intentional one, but it's definitely there.

all of the characters who move on from eve are portrayed in a very negative light, especially when they point out she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing.

also, can someone please find me an example of park having always been a dick besides his early clash with hanna? it seems like the people (especially the people sucking meredith's dick on her website) who think park was "always" a dick just had a boner for will/eve and wanted park out of the picture.

Man regardless of how this thread goes I'm pretty glad you decided to put some effort into an OP after your terrible shitpost one got deleted. Kudos OP.

>Hannah was always trying to bring everything back to herself and didn't treat others seriously enough or brushed off their problems

Marigold was the pathetic friend that always had a messy breakup that she needed to be carried through.

When Marek graduated and Hanna was wallowing, Marigold tried to make Hanna feel better, as Hanna always had for Marigold. Hanna instead took it as a bitter role reversal--now Marigold was the one who had her shit together and her trying to help Hanna meant that now Hanna was the pathetic one who needed to be carried. That's why Hanna flipped the fuck out.

I didn't make the first thread, I've just been irritated with this comic for a while and wanted to actually discuss it since I've never seen it on Sup Forums

I'd like to know what happened to him, hopefully he is happy with the insurance money.

>all of the characters who move on from eve are portrayed in a very negative light, especially when they point out she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing
When ? I have no memories of such cases but perhaps I forgot things.

>an example of park having always been a dick
I guess it's more about his overall personality, like how his story with Eve wasn't all good and he left her and he was kind of the leader of their little group of nerds so no one stood up to him or admitted he could a dick ? It's been a while since I read the beginning so I might be forgetting things but I felt like he wasn't all that good of a man overall and abused Eve's character, basically using her as his girlfriend and throwing her away the moment he stopped needing her. Guess I'm in for a rereading soon.

>he left her
Eve broke up with him last time. Unless you're talking about their college days.

>he was kind of the leader of their little group of nerds so no one stood up to him or admitted he could a dick
she hadn't talked to the nerds in literal years. she wasn't involved in their lives at all by the time the comic started, and once the laser tag fight arc happened, she never talked to them again.

> basically using her as his girlfriend and throwing her away the moment he stopped needing her
like I said, unless you're talking about their college days--or maybe the very recent bit where he came back and was suddenly a very out-of-character douchebag--I don't see it at all. I do see Eve doing this to her nerd friends though.

for the time that we saw him in the comic--not during their college days that happened before the comic started--Park was a good guy, and Eve was always the more anxious, unsure, and inconsiderate person in their relationship. When Park said "I love you," she said she wasn't ready for it. When Park wanted to take her to Chicago and provide for her--he didn't even ask for her to get a job!--she couldn't handle the commitment. When he admitted he cheated on her, apologized, and said, "No more lies," and she said "yeah ok", she had literally made out with Will right before she met with him. Even though it bothered him that she worked in a grocery store, 1) it was because he knew she could do better and 2) he still supported her. He wanted them to grow together, she wanted them to stay the same together, and he gets treated like an asshole.

This is of course all before when he comes back and calls her a hipster after she splashes a drink in his face, but people were calling Park a dick right from the start, so that's why I'm confused.

On paper, yeah, Park is a lot more sensible, and Eve certainly indulged in some forbidden fruit. But Park always had this "I know what's best attitude." It's like what another person in this thread said, no one in the story is without flaws, everyone is working through shit.

And because I can't keep track of who's who in this thread, doesn't the whole arc with the coffee shop shoot down the success = unhappiness thing? Marigold's GF is learning love and responsibility with the help of her ex-Wall Street Obi Wan.

>Park always had this "I know what's best attitude."
maybe compared to early-comic Hanna and the stoner friends.

by the time Park showed up, Eve was barely getting over hating Hanna, and was constantly bitching about her job. Park essentially showed up and said, "this isn't what you want" like anyone would when confronted with someone like that--I don't think that's Park having an arrogant attitude, I think that's Park being almost the only straight man besides Eve in a comic that was full of goofy people doing goofy things.

plotlines:
>brazen Hanna goes topless in a park and talks about having a duck farm
>Eve jumps off a roof and Marigold and Hanna play in a band with a large rock lobster cryptid
>a travelling hobo makes friends with everybody and eats Hanna's muffins
>*AMERICA JONES* and the case of Hanna's broken ass
>Eve had a dream about a celebrity and it was actually an ominous prediction of doom, gotta move apartments!
>Eve finds a parrot and realizes all her new friends only hang out with her because of the parrot
>Eve rekindles an old flame who wants to settle down with her

one of these things is not like the others

>doesn't the whole arc with the coffee shop shoot down the success = unhappiness thing? Marigold's GF is learning love and responsibility with the help of her ex-Wall Street Obi Wan
perhaps, but I'd wait a little more before deciding they're okay.

of course, since it's popular with tumblr, you can't allow anything bad to happen to the gays

I think you're over conflating the importance of Tumblr.
This comic was around before that acquisition was a twinkle in Yahoo's eyes.

i've been reading the thread and the comics sounds interesting but if the theme of successful=unhappy is true i don't think it's for me but do you think i should read it

but marigold's bisexuality wasn't

read up until you get to the part with Victor. that part is at least good to end on.

It's got relationship shenanigans and shit with people in their 20s being in their 20s.
The comic is about figuring you're own shit for you. Whatever it is that helps the characters get through another day. It's not about equating success with unhappiness.

What's your problem with it, then?

a comic having a theme isn't the same as a comic being *about* something

it's pretty clear octopus pie has an unintentional theme.

Park makes it = he gets put on a bus and when he comes back he's a superdouche

Marek makes it = he gets put on a bus and when he comes back it triggers the shit out of Hanna

Marigold makes it = she becomes shallow until Jane comes in and tells her to stop caring about her job so much

Eve's nerd friends grow up and do things like getting married and having kids and real jobs = put on a bus and never seen again* except to make Eve feel bad

*Greg is the exception here, but he's a whiny sad sack with a victim complex that prevents him from making it so he hasn't been put on a bus.

It seems like everyone who wants to grow up and start doing something is either written out or is suddenly a dick, and the only way they can be redeemed is through either hanging out with the slackers who don't want to go anywhere, or refusing to go anywhere yourself.

I'm not saying Meredith intended for this to happen, but it's there.

Why doesn't the artist just get rid of their noses if she doesn't like drawing them

I think you're taking away the wrong things from the Marek arc.
Marek and Hanna splitting up was about a fundamental difference in views about where they wanted to take their lives with Marek wanting kids. The comic never made him a dick about that.
And when he came back he was successful, but the comic still made him affable, friendly, and genuinely concerned about Hanna's well being.
Hanna freaked out a bit, but yeah, anyone would when someone from an old relationship comes back like that, but they talked and left on totally good terms as opposed to when he left the first time and Hanna could barely speak to him.

And Shallow isn't quite the right word, but Marigold was always going with the motions. Jane didn't tell Marigold to stop thinking about work, she told Marigold to think about what makes Marigold happy and forget the hustle and bustle of every day life for a moment and reach out for some inner calm. That's not the same thing as equating success with being evil.

It's only there in your eyes, and you need glasses.
Park being a dick or a douche is questionable, but the rest of your examples are shit. It's not even about making it. Marek and Hannah broke up, Hannah thought she was over him, but every time they interact or she sees him she realizes she still feels something, while he moved on. Marigold was shallow when she started out as one of the stoner friends, way before flipping off Hannah and moving on with her life, getting a job and eventually meeting Jane. Eve's friends aren't exactly developed apart from Park, and Greg, who you dismiss as being an exception.
As other people already mentioned, Octopus Pie is about people growing up, maturing as adults and overcoming obstacles in their lives. The only "slacker" I can think of at this point in the comic is Eve because she's the last character who hasn't move forward, and it's happening right now. Hannah and Will have started their baking business, Marek has a job and a new girlfriend, Marigold has a job and Jane, who in turn has the coffee shop. Park is happy in his life I guess. Everyone has moved on, at least every important character, there's not a group of people sitting on their asses like you make it out to be. Unless I'm missing a massive portion of the story somehow.