Important memory 1

So nope, Robert is/was not a teacher for her, just an older student who started working and made a presentation to encourage others to try. For now Sofia looks only mildly interested, next page is where the fun begins! And don’t worry it won’t be a long flashback.

I am still preparing for my exam (damn, now you will all laugh at me if I write that I failed under the next page… I should have been quiet!) but on Friday I shall regain my freedom! I painted something silly over the weekend, I’ll add it to the gallery tomorrow after… Right, I can’t tell you. Well, just check out Tobwebcomics page on Monday and Replay’s gallery later on! Or you can follow Replay on Twitter or Facebook if you want to know right away.

See you next week and cross your fingers for me on Friday! ლ(o◡oლ)

58 comments on “Important memory 1”

  1. Rateus Camp dweller Reply

    I don’t think recruitations is a word in English. We’d just say when do you open recruitment. You don’t even need the the. I like your flashback pages to build your world as nd characters.

    • NotImportant Reply

      Damn, you are right. I think people at my uni simply invented it and it got stuck in my brain. That needs fixing =_= Thank you!

  2. SirTrojan Reply

    In my opinion flashbacks aren’t anything to worry about, i love them just as much as the main story. And if there is a lot to tell about where the characters came from, a few pages would be fine with me 🙂

    • NotImportant Reply

      There is that rule in writing (I am not sure who established it and how true it is) that in general audience is less interested in the past than it is in the future. So long flashbacks, which make the story drag, are not advised. But Replay is full of short interruptions from the past and those weird ‘visions’ Ada and Robert are having so I gets me worried sometimes, that the main story is progressing slowly.
      Feh, if you enjoy it – that’s all I need 🙂

      • xthorgoldx Reply

        Well, I’m pretty sure an exception to that rule is for stories specifically begun in media res, as replay technically is. This all started with Robert and Ada kicking the shit out of Adam in the middle of the desert, after all.

      • Refugnic Reply

        It is exceedingly important to know where someone came from in order to understand why they are acting the way they are acting.

        A little example: Something bursts into flames and one of the characters is absolutely petrified by the sight, almost getting fried themselves.
        Just out of the blue, that’s atypical behavior, seeing how you usually either try to run from the fire or try to fight it (Fight of Flight, you know the drill).

        However, as soon as you know that the character had to watch his home and family fall prey to the flames when they were just a child, the behavior makes much more sense. They fall into a trauma shock, reliving the initial trauma, completely disconnected from the real world.

        So you see, knowing the past is very important. As is showing it.
        So yeah, I don’t mind a flashback or two at all, because they tell us things we need to know to understand the characters better.

        On another note, I’ve written stories which consisted of 50 % ‘flashback’ so to speak, because it started with a situation way into the story (In Media Res, just like Thorgold already said) and then I rolled back to the actual beginning of the story. And tell you what, that story was among my best so far. 😉

        Please remember: In the past lies the foundation of who we are today. Today we lay down the bricks of who we are going to be tomorrow.
        Do not dismiss the foundation or else the entire house will come down.

        Oh and the best of luck for your exam. I just know you’ll do fine, seeing how much effort you’ve already put into it.

        Also, seeing how Rob worked in Marketing, that ‘Join us today’ ominously bland. Or does he trust his speaking skills to do the convincing this much? 😉
        But then again, ‘I want you for the U.S. Army’ worked for thousands of poor souls too, so simple might be better. 😀

        • Dæmon Reply

          I’m going to stop reading all of that and just say, Yes, a flashback IS important, particularly in an example like that fire. If there’s a story to tell that is in a flashback, then show the WHOLE story. So far, NI, I understand the comments as saying, “If you need to tell a back story, take your time. There’s no point in rushing it.” For me,

          I should make my own input that it should at the very least add to the character’s relevance, or it should add to the story. If you need to rewrite he backstories from earlier (assuming you don’t expand later), then you could when you make an actual book. I know I keep talking about ways to make money with this comic, but I’m not trying to make it into a profit, as you might think I am, but I’m rather trying to think of ways to attract a larger audience. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine.

          Still, the background is important, particularly for the listed cast. I just wonder what if a cartoon of some sort might be interesting. I can imagine someone making it on YouTube in a pretty crappy animation, but maybe you a cartoon from a studio like Rooster Teeth (which did Red VS Blue and RWBY, if you know either of those) could be a good choice, however, the problem lies in catching up to the manga/comic (I don’t know which this is closer to, honestly). Anyway, I always think of expansion. I guess it’s an old habit from playing Red Alert all day when I was young. Sorry if that’s not what you want.

          Honestly, though, the background can actually be MORE important, since some stories actually follow the main part of the story in a past tense or from a background perspective, potentially leading up to the big finale of climax. Even if it doesn’t, it can still be the main view of the story or even a few volumes of a story or series. Anyway, I should stop for now. I’m about to get busy again.

      • JW Reply

        It depends a lot on the story. “Memento” was nothing but flashback. (Of course you can only do that once and be original.)
        One of the big mysteries in Replay is where the demons come from and what happened to cause the current situation, which are all things that happened in the past, so flashbacks would be one way to address that and move the story forward.

      • JW Reply

        Oh, and if people are going to throw Latin around unexpectedly, could you spell it right so it stands out more? It’s “in medias res”, which would have triggered my train of thought to go straight to station Google rather than wonder what any of this have to do with the resolution of the medium.

        • Refugnic Reply

          Ah crud, misspelled it after all. I really should’ve checked the spelling before. You’re right of course, but at least it got the point across.

          And this is not ‘throwing around Latin unexpectedly’, but much rather using a (rather) well-known foreign phrase, much like ‘Alea iacta est’, to describe a way to start a story, aiming to hook the reader into the story by raising a huge pile of questions before trailing back to the actual beginning (or telling it in flashbacks as the story progresses, like here) and starting to actually explain things.

          But of course you already knew all that and, as usual, I never fail to make a fool of myself. 😀

          • Zenanii

            Welp, now I feel utterly ignorant, as I’ve never heard either of those phrases before : /

          • JW

            No need to feel bad about that ignorance. I bet there are a lot of well-known phrases either of us know but Refugnic doesn’t. “Well-known” always comes with the caveat of “in my crowd of people”.
            I may have come across both phrases occasionally, but they’re not part of the world I generally live in; I’m not a story-maker, historian or a classicist. Which is why people invented dictionary, because the average person knows at best a few tens of thousands of words, but there are millions of words in use in the English language alone.

            Raise your hand if you know what acetylcholinesterase is. It has more hits on Google than “in medias res”, so by that standard it’s better known. It could be a bad example, but I fancy my chances.

            In any case, I did not expect Latin, and it parsed as English (because it was misspelled), so that was confusing.

            quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur

          • Lukkai

            Hehe… That’s my favourite Latin saying. 😀

            And I actually had Latin courses for two years at school. Never was very good at it though.

      • NotImportant Reply

        Perfect! Now when you start complaining about too many flashbacks I can just point you to this comments section ~( • ∀•)~

        • Refugnic Reply

          Everything in moderation and you know it.
          Besides, you know how audience tends to be.

          We are a most fickle bunch. ;P

          But as of now, I want (and need) to know a lot more.
          Don’t worry, you’ll know when we’ve had enough.
          We’ll let you know. 😉

          • NotImportant

            I have no doubts hah 😉 I really love reading all those comments under the pages. Without you all making this comic would be a lot less fun, ha, maybe even boring after a while.

          • Refugnic

            Which is part of the reason why I keep bombing the comment section, despite better knowledge of the predators lurking here. 😛

            We wouldn’t want you to get bored after all. 😉

            Besides, as a writer myself, know how much of a downer it is to have poured a lot of time and effort into devising a clever story and then watch it getting pretty much completely ignored by those you aimed to entertain.

            And my stories/chapters only take about 2-3 hours. I shudder at how much time and effort you’re pumping into these pages.

    • Refugnic Reply

      A very specific hue of blue to be precise, because ‘deep blue’ would be #0000FF.

      A red tint, a lot of green and double of that blue.
      And I guess that means I’m a geek too. But then again, you can’t do my job without being at least a bit of a geek, so it’s all good. 🙂

      • NotImportant Reply

        And no one pointed out the origin of that color yet? I am disappointed with you, guys! 😀

          • Refugnic

            The number is way too specific to not have a reason behind it.
            Though, quite honestly, I wouldn’t have guessed Ada’s eye color.

            So I draw the hat I’m not wearing to Exael, who got it on the first try. 😀

          • JW

            The reason could just be that being overly specific is funnier.
            There’s no reason behind “42” as the answer to life the universe and everything, other than being funny. (Which hasn’t stopped people from coming up with all sorts of reasons)

            Even minor changes in lighting conditions, just the tilt of the head, would change the rgb color of someone’s eyes. Case in point, Ada’s eye-color in that facebook-banner below is vastly different. And on the previous page every pixel of her eyes are different 😛

          • JW

            Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint. On the other hand, I also wouldn’t want to be wrong, but you can’t have everything.
            If we count the (near)white, FFFFFF occurs 15 times and EEF0F4 occurs twice, but anything is unique. 😛

            (197EF0 doesn’t actually occur at all)

          • NotImportant

            It’s so obvious once pointed out, isn’t it (ノ・∀・)ノ

          • Zenanii

            Ah, so that means he knew Ada already during this flashback?

          • Refugnic

            Not just that, it also implies that he already liked her back then.
            I mean, why else would his favorite color in the world be the very specific hue of a coworker’s eyes?

            Also, just to throw out a bone for discussion: How did he discern the exact color code?
            But then again, he likely took a high-resolution digital photo and simply used the color picker on the PC to find out…nope, not creepy at all. 😀

          • Dæmon

            Yup. Totally not creepy. However, I want to add that the actual shade DOES change based on various things like light sources, and may even change exact percentage of color based on the iris’s size at the moment of the photo, moment, or other capturing of an image or set there of.

  4. Lukkai Reply

    Why do I get the feeling that the next few pages won’t be fun for little Sophie?

  5. ChuckTheProphet Reply

    From now on I’m going to start responding in hexadecimal when people ask me what my favorite color is.

    • Refugnic Reply

      Be sure to specify whether you’re talking in RGBA or CYMK, otherwise people will get confused. 😀

      How was that again?

      There are exactly 10 kinds of people in the world.
      Those who understand binary and those who don’t.

      😛

  6. Zenanii Reply

    Older student hm? Could mean he was a few classes above Sophie and he has graduated already, or he’s simply a few years older then her and he’s not studing because he’s a dropout.
    The outfit and the windows in the background match Sophias earlier flashback so I’m guessing we’re about to see “angry Robert” within the next two strips. But what could have made him angry?

    He’s currently holding a Q&A, so now is a prime oppurtunity for someone in the room to ask him something offensive to set him of. The previous flashback shows him glaring at Sophie (with contempt? Or maybe just anger) yet she looks bored/uninterested here, which makes her a unlikely candidate to light the fuse.

    So, theory time:
    With the next couple of panels during this Q&A someone calls out Robert as a dropout, a former delinquent or something else that he’d rather forget/something unpleasent he was part of. Rob starts to argue with said person and Sophie decides to intervene by defending Robert but does so in the worst possible way (not sure about the details, but something like “it’s not his fault his father beat him as a child” (not saying I think that’s what happend, just creating an example of “inapropiate way to try to support someone”)).
    Either way, she does something, Robert gets even more pissed of and stalks out the room leaving Sophie feeling stupid.

  7. Kytrooper Reply

    Hey, just a thought – you should get someone, maybe from this site (not me tho lol) to proofread ur writing and slightly reword it to make it a little less awkward or remove grammar mistakes

    I really really REALLY love this comic, but the awkward writing at times can distract from what you’re trying to say, I think it’d be a good idea

    • NotImportant Reply

      To be honest I need to read through the archive and fix it, since when I make one page a week it’s very easy to write something ‘awkward’. But of course if any native English speaker/writer could do that for me I would be delighted, for now I have to rely on the readers who point out the typos and things like that quite often (more often than I’d like to admit heh).
      Thanks for reading and putting up with my English!

  9. Amy Reply

    Hmm I wonder how Robert won Sofia over in this scene… Love when I get to see meet cutes happen! *swoons*
    Good luck with your exam! And I adore your TWC art contest illustration by the way! ^^

    • NotImportant Reply

      Thanks! 😀 And I think he won her pretty much just by being the only guy in the camp she actually knows lol

      • Dæmon Reply

        You “think”, or do you actually KNOW the answer? I mean, as the original author (as far as I can tell, anyway. I’ve never heard of a story by this name before coming across this one), you should at the very least have an idea of these sorts of things. Granted, I normally do free-writes, with little or no planning, and it turns out wonderfully (and I don’t know if that kind if writing still has to follow those rules, but I try to). However, if this comic has definite personality traits and behavior patterns already planned out or even written in advance, I would think that the rest of the pieces would fall into place on their own to some extent.

        Basically, I feel like we’re getting ” maybe” a little too often, and frankly, I think we need at least a few answers, since while I appreciate the ” you’ll find out later” part as much as a yes or no, I personally feel like all we get lately is “you’ll see” or “maybe”, and I kind of want an actual yes or no for once. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but it’s getting hard to enjoy this comic when it feels like we can’t actually ASK any questions about the comic and get a definite answer. Again, I’m sorry if I upset anyone, but it’s how I feel. I think that I would like some information, even if it’s only a little bit. I mean, if we had a data files tab, and could look at some of the questions we’ve asked and see what you had to say, or if we could look at the discoveries of the group of people we’re following, I might actually feel like I could ask a question and not get a sort of deflection for an answer.

        • Dæmon Reply

          And of course, I always figure out a better way to say AFTER I post to so.e form of text communication. Basically, I kind of want an actual answer rather than a deflection for what feels like it’s been a long while since I saw an actually good answer. We may have gotten some actual answers, but it feels smaller than the number of deflections we get, from what I remember. Sorry, again, if I upset you, but it’s how I feel.

          • NotImportant

            And when you read a book it also upsets you that you can’t send a text to the author to ask about stuff? I know it’s tempting to ask since I am here and I’m active but I am not going to start posting spoilers just because you don’t have the patience to actually wait for the story to finish 😀 That’s just absurd!
            I answer all questions that are unrelated and won’t be answered, or were already answered but got missed or forgotten. I won’t tell you how the story ends, who will end up with who and so on. That should be fairly obvious.
            And sometimes I say ‘maybe’ or ‘I think’ because nothing is set in stone, maybe apart from the main plot and those pages that are already finished. It would be insanely boring if I couldn’t change the small bits on the fly.

    • NotImportant Reply

      I wanted Replay’s world to be pretty similar to ours (before the demons happened, that is) so yeah, Google exists~
      And who knows! Maybe the demon apocalypse is upon us! All because of the evil Google!!!1!1

    • Klorix Camp dweller Reply

      *facepalm” Duh, there is no o in the hexadecimal system, Klorix. You should really think before you type…

      • NotImportant Reply

        Hahaha don’t worry, I’ll happily assume that you just got so absorbed in the comic that you didn’t think ๏◡๏

        • Klorix Camp dweller Reply

          Hehe, there’s someone closely watching her(?) comments section 😉 I just backtracked to add another comment to the colour topic and there you are, already replying.
          You can happily continue to assume that I am absorbed; it even helps forgetting that *swearword* headache I have today.

          Is it by any chance the specific blue you are using for Ada’s eyes?

          • NotImportant

            Yes it is! And I read all of the comments hehehe, consider yourself watched~!

      • NotImportant Reply

        Hexadecimal number is by definition made from 0-9 A-F ‘digits’, there is no place for ‘O’ there. Only if someone implemented the browser tool poorly you get the green (which is actually #19800e, by the way).

  14. SotiCoto Reply

    SHE USED TO WEAR GLASSES?!

    Did she lose her glasses in the attack?! What happened to them? Why is she, in the current day, not wearing glasses?
    Well… this changes everything, as long as she gets glasses back soon. Can’t have her running around with uncorrected vision… or worse yet, contact lenses.

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