Comic page for Tuseday, April 8th, 2014

[Zantax]

Can we just have a moment of silence for everyone's brains who attempted to think out the plot for what turned out to be a long joke...

Tom all I got to say is you are truly the master troll.

[geckohero17]

5 minutes ago I was about to go to sleep, then I figure "Eh, I should quickly check Twokinds. What's the worst that can happen?!"

IT HAPPENED!!!!

I'm not going to be able to get to sleep now over this, like my sleep pattern wasn't ruined enough.

Thank you, Tom. For another night of no sleep.

[Alec]

....*sees update*....*gets pitchfork*....*joins mob*.....

Nah, on a more serious base, I did NOT expect that. And therefore, all I have to say is: Well played, Sir. Well played.

Though, on the other hand, I was so happy to see Alaric back...and now, ded. Again. You betrayed my tiny trust, Tom!

But, life goes on in the cannon comic. And with it, we (and I) got another unusual Basatin to be happy about: Maddie.

Soooooo...all in all: This had the effect of real prank and it was nice to see the reactions towards this (in retroperspective: My own as well), and therefore I am not upset, but amazed about it.

[Ketzal]

However, there is *another* possibility that has been mentioned, which actually now seems more and more likely. Perhaps this was all *meant to be canon*, and that the "this is not April fools" announcements and messages were *real*, but upon seeing how much negative feedback the community gave to Alaric's return, Tom decided to quickly retcon and cover up this new plot into a "Gotcha! Week-long April Fools!!!". I'm starting to think this is more and more likely given what has happened.

pretty sure that this is what happened.

Okay, so I'll admit I had my miffed moments during this, but what are people complaining about at this point? He said he was sorry, he admitted that he made it more convoluted than he should've. He recognized that a lot of people weren't going to like this being a real thing (or at least the way it was being delivered), so he changed it back to being a joke!

I'm with obi wan on this, I feel like people are exaggerating a bit. Cut the guy some slack, for crying out loud

[tony1695]

I reckon the only thing that completely ruined this is the date. If the first part hadn't come out on the 1st of April, we would have been more receptive. On April Fool's we expect something stupid or ridiculous, so for the most part we were all 'And you expect us to think this is real?' instead of 'Ooh, I wonder how this will affect the story'. Maybe it was just tragic timing, or Tom suffered a massive brain derp thinking it would be funny to give us what looked to be a joke.

[Niara]

Honestly, if it was announced that, yes, it had originally been planned as a thing, with the hinting all around, such as the eye and the stutter and whatnot... but that the overwhelming lean of the feedback was against it, and so he decided to round it all into a non-canon joke and negate it... If tom actually came forward and said that... I'd be completely happy with it, and I'd respect the honesty... I'd also feel a bit bad for him, as a creative individual, having felt pressured to change.

Currently, What I'm feeling most keenly is an awareness of all the things which are now, without being hints at this event, simply inconsistencies... the slipped speech impediment and the eye peeks, notably. (Incidentlaly, I never thougth of Lynn's speech as being a stutter... I always assumed it was that sort of hesitating-by-phrase manner of speaking that high-class (usually British) servants often end up adopting. Oh well.)

I'm not mad, and I'll offer my compliments to Tom on the artwork and the effort put into it, but for now I'm just going to read on quietly.

[sontron]

I don't think I'll ever be conviced that Tom didn't originally want this to be canon, and just changed his mind because of the negative feedback. It seemed WAY too thought out in the first few pages, and then rushed in the last one. But I can't really say I'm mad at Tom. He admitted it was a bad joke (even if it wasn't meant to be) and apologized for it, so anybody saying they will stop reading because of this are SERIOUSLY overreacting. The story is going to continue soon enough, and I for one can't wait for that.
My own way of coping with this is believing that Tom just needed some extra time to work out the plot of the rest of the chapter (which he DID SAY he needed some time to work on) and figured an extended April Fools thing would give him enough time to work it out. Again, this is just how I'm justifying this, not really based on any facts.

But I was kinda starting to like the whole ghost thing...

[hands_of_stealth]

And now, whenever I see Lynn, I'm gonna half expect a divine intervention from Alaric. Thanks Tom...

[Shannara360]

I think some people are seriously over reacting. But that is just my opinion, just as it is theirs and we are both entitled to it. Anyways, I was seriously fooled by Tom this time around, badly. But, I can't even be mad. Though this is one of my favorite webcomics and it means a lot to me, it is not mine. I do not pay for it, I do not own it. The most I have done is donated 7 dollars or so for the sole reason of supporting Tom and the comic.

Sure I feel blindsided, I actually stayed up one night thinking about the implications of Alaric coming back and about how happy I was that one of my favorite characters had essentially been revived. Sure Tom may have slightly cheapened the impact by outright saying it wasn't a joke in the beginning. But the way I personally see it that is kinda the point. You are supposed to fool others, and what better way than to do it after the fact?

I am sad that Alaric is really dead, but I still found this mini joke arc to be hilarious. But that is simply my own opinion, and you can interpret it however you wish.

[Josh.C]

Well as surprising as this story came about, it ended just as surprisingly.

Well I guess we're going back to where they were just leaving the room then and the pilfering of stuff was taking place.

Well it was an amusing April fools joke.

[Corpsificus]

This was a good joke and I like how the explanations made it plausible. I knew the timing and awkward transition were still suspect, however. I'm glad that these pages popped up! It was a fun little adventure to ponder what Tom was going to do next, plus I'm glad that the awkward transition was not canon because it is not typical of Tom to have them.

All in all, in hindsight, I think we can all agree that we had some April Fool's fun.

[yamigenesis]

way to be an arsewhole Tom.... :/

[Schrodinger]

Tom just can't win with this crowd can he?

[unsteddyPhoenix]

Holy hell people are way more salty about this than I thought they'd be. There are actually people would are going to stop reading over this? Are you all saying that jokes and pranks can only be made exclusively on april 1st? If they're made on any other date would they be completely unfunny regardless of what it was? What if April 1st wasn't a thing, would pranks be a DEADLY SIN to you? It's just a date on the calender, everybody needs to calm their [censored] down which could perhaps be accomplished by removing that stick up all your [censored].

Getting upset because you got tricked on day you weren't expecting it is just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Do you not understand that you're not SUPPOSED to see it coming? Or are people just so mad that they're becoming temporarily insane and all of these complaints makes total sense to them.

[MuonNeutrino]

Holy hell people are way more salty about this than I thought they'd be. There are actually people would are going to stop reading over this? Are you all saying that jokes and pranks can only be made exclusively on april 1st? If they're made on any other date would they be completely unfunny regardless of what it was? What if April 1st wasn't a thing, would pranks be a DEADLY SIN to you? It's just a date on the calender, everybody needs to calm their [censored] down which could perhaps be accomplished by removing that stick up all your [censored].

Getting upset because you got tricked on day you weren't expecting it is just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Do you not understand that you're not SUPPOSED to see it coming? Or are people just so mad that they're becoming temporarily insane and all of these complaints makes total sense to them.

That's uncalled for. Just because you don't understand why some people do not like this sort of thing is no excuse to insult them. I don't understand the people who say they're going to stop reading either, but I'm not going to imply that they're crazy because of it. It's also equally insulting to imply that their feelings on the matter are illegitimate and they aren't allowed to feel that way. People are allowed to not like pranks.