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Demonic Lunatic

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AKA being a "Serial" Gaian versus an "Archive" Gaian.


In reading, both books and webcomics, "Serial" means that you keep up with an ongoing story or comic as it's being updated. This also means learning of the stuff that influences an update and any changes that may follow. "Archive," on the other hand, means that you're reading stuff that has long since updated and are reading through, well, the archives. As a result, the context of certain stuff is lost on an archive reader while a serial reader may remember them fondly. All archive readers do eventually become serial readers, but that's not my point.

My point is that Gaia sure has a lot of items based on the stuff outside Gaia that then influenced them.

One example were the relatively recently-added new poses for the Cig. A long time ago, all you had was a pose for hands, a pose where it hung on your lip, and one where it was in your mouth. A very simple item. Now it has a lot of other poses, all thanks to the Anti-Cig Ban Protests. On the other hand, Fremere's Guard's "bonus poses" are highly influenced by events that happened within Gaia as the item evolved, such as Sasha gaining new shop art and complaints of her being "skinny," the complaints of too many RIG items and too many companion poses, and of course, GCD McSourface. The item containing Johnny's photo contains a lot of treasured memories for us, and Gaia-tan's visage brings out nostalgia in a lot of us. Also going back to Fremere's Guard, it poked at another item evolving in its lifetime, Anima Adamantea, and an artist's rendition of Fremere and Reiko even proved that they were together at some point!

But to someone fresh and new to the site, a lot of these old references, shout outs, hand waves...they all go over his naive head. What to do when you're surrounded by things you don't understand? The only logical conclusion.

In respect to your join date...are you an archive or a serial Gaian? When did you become "serial," that is, you caught up with all the major happening on this site?

Scholarly Storyteller

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i don't consider myself either. i never really thought of those before. once i get my (varying levels of) curiosity sated that's that and i move on to another activity.

like i clicked on the link and read like 1 para of the explanation about people with OCD with reading everything but i just skimmed the rest and thought to myself, there are too many mushrooms in my soup but that's kinda my fault 'cause i put them there

but oh i gotta type a response 'cause i already invested time reading this thread (good thread btw 'though my brain's too dead to really read into it to know if i'm even answering correctly or not) heeheehee......

add: maybe i'm both

Demonic Lunatic

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i don't consider myself either. i never really thought of those before. once i get my (varying levels of) curiosity sated that's that and i move on to another activity.

like i clicked on the link and read like 1 para of the explanation about people with OCD with reading everything but i just skimmed the rest and thought to myself, there are too many mushrooms in my soup but that's kinda my fault 'cause i put them there

but oh i gotta type a response 'cause i already invested time reading this thread (good thread btw 'though my brain's too dead to really read into it to know if i'm even answering correctly or not) heeheehee......
Then you're probably an archive reader. Don't blame you, though, Gaia's plot alone is really convoluted and for whatever reason its own (unofficial) wiki is too disorganized to get a good idea of anything that happened between... hmm, '08 to right now, essentially.

Scholarly Storyteller

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Penn Almasy
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i don't consider myself either. i never really thought of those before. once i get my (varying levels of) curiosity sated that's that and i move on to another activity.

like i clicked on the link and read like 1 para of the explanation about people with OCD with reading everything but i just skimmed the rest and thought to myself, there are too many mushrooms in my soup but that's kinda my fault 'cause i put them there

but oh i gotta type a response 'cause i already invested time reading this thread (good thread btw 'though my brain's too dead to really read into it to know if i'm even answering correctly or not) heeheehee......
Then you're probably an archive reader. Don't blame you, though, Gaia's plot alone is really convoluted and for whatever reason its own (unofficial) wiki is too disorganized to get a good idea of anything that happened between... hmm, '08 to right now, essentially.

i don't really like either/or dichotomies 'cause i think sometimes in some situation you can be 1 thing, but in a different situation you can be another. it all really depends on context and level of interest in something IMO

dancing_ice's Fangirl

I'm neither. I take long breaks to be 'serial' and I don't bother to update myself to be an 'archive', if I'm here for a certain development in the story then I'm here, I don't follow the story much anyways, the only updating I do when I return from hiatus are items and their prices. xd

Questionable Mage

Not sure which I prefer, really. Archives are fun because you can burn through them and experience the full unfolding of a story instead of getting it in small pieces, though context does tend to fall out. Serial reading can generate a lot of interesting speculation and (over)analysis and excitement over cliffhangers, but it can be frustrating to wait, and the pacing is strange when you get small spaced out pieces of a continuous narrative, not to mention re-immersion if you forgot why you even liked it during the interim period...

I think Gaia's bizarre plots work better with serial reading, though...they don't really have much of an overarching theme to begin with, and rely quite a bit on the context of events. One example is the alien plot, which was confusing even if you were there at the time but not involved in the threads generating the plot...

Stellar Succubus

I dunno, I think it's possible to catch on pretty quickly with observation and asking questions or researching older events and stuff.

But this feels like a thread regarding join date, really. Anyone in the GCD's pretty interested in the site and would probably already be a 'serial', most likely from when they first came to the GCD or joined Gaia! smile

Demonic Lunatic

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I dunno, I think it's possible to catch on pretty quickly with observation and asking questions or researching older events and stuff.

But this feels like a thread regarding join date, really. Anyone in the GCD's pretty interested in the site and would probably already be a 'serial', most likely from when they first came to the GCD or joined Gaia! smile
Judging by this thread alone...I doubt it.

GCD...has changed. /solidsnake

frantic spark's Senpai

Angelic Unicorn

I used to know everything about the GD, I started becoming more familiar with the rest of the site in 08 when I had my accident. I'm still not as into it as most GCDers are though. I do read the manga and get developer alerts and stuff. I know people who know gaia artists but I never got into that.

Shameless Exhibitionist

I am a perpetual archive reader, mostly because my interest in any given media or pursuit will wax and wane from month to month. My first Gaia account dates back to 2005, but I know less about what happened on site from 2010 to 2011 than I do about events from 2004, before I got here. I tend to take big hiatuses (dear god what is the plural on that?) from everything before picking them up again and reading again archivally.

I'm like six months behind on homestuck too. >_> I guess I just prefer instant gratification to waiting around and getting little bits of the good stuff at a time.

Shameless Exhibitionist

Also known as BINGE AND PURGE BINGE AND PURRRRRRGE. Apparently I am Gaia bulimic.

Cluttered Kitten

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Leizce
I'm neither. I take long breaks to be 'serial' and I don't bother to update myself to be an 'archive', if I'm here for a certain development in the story then I'm here, I don't follow the story much anyways, the only updating I do when I return from hiatus are items and their prices. xd
User Image
This is exactly where I stand. I'll follow a story if I take the time to look at it when it's first released.
I really don't look through the archives to catch up on the storyline though.
I usually only pay attention to the story when it involves a big event that's being held.

Spooky Phantom

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I think I'm a serial Gaian, since I've been around since 2004 without more than a week's break at a time. I prefer to be an archive reader for other things, though! There's a webcomic I like that's updated extremely infrequently. Since it's more of a page-by-page graphic novel than a gag strip, it's actually easier to follow if read all at once.

Sparkly Fairy

Leizce
I'm neither. I take long breaks to be 'serial' and I don't bother to update myself to be an 'archive', if I'm here for a certain development in the story then I'm here, I don't follow the story much anyways, the only updating I do when I return from hiatus are items and their prices. xd
pretty much the same here.

Buggy Mage

I know key events but I really haven't read much of the manga. Though I do fee like I should eventually. Some of the earlier stuff seems to be really full of character development.
Interesting tidbit about Fremere and Reiko I didn't know that. Now that you mention it, I think I recall the painting you refered to them being together in. Was it that one where they were in a fighting postion, back to back and stuff? That was a really cool painting. Btw What the heck happened to Reiko? It would be nice to get more Ghost in the Shell reference around here. 3nodding

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