Comic for Monday, March 5th, 2018
Mar05
In Naomi’s defense, arms don’t usually just rip off like that. Normally if you apply that much force to an arm, the person would just be flung in that direction, but this is part of the danger of using something like a boost engine; if you’ve made yourself a lot harder to move in order not to be flung backwards by an angry charging Naomi, you have to make sure that effect weaker than the effect holding, say, your arms on.
And yes, it’s been a sort of bad day for arms around here. The just sort of stick out there, so bad things happen to them. This page was particularly painful to draw as someone with shoulder problems, haha.
This is the Naomi that we all sort of knew was lurking under the friendly exterior (beware when she stops smiling indeed). We have seen her almost get actually angry once before when she got shot by a sniper rifle, after which she continued to run around the city across roof tops for hours, punched power armored IDS Soldier through a fence, and then slept the entire thing off by taking a nap during class.
People like Mione who actually know her call her a monster. She was beating Kally at airball despite using an actual racket against magic by sheer speed and power. Mium says that she can beat him at certain games.
From the commentary, it seems that she was not really intending to rip off Acalia’s arm (finally, a name!), this was just for a second her getting frustrated and lashing out, and what do you know, someone broke basically instantly.
I am going to look forward to learning more about why Naomi is such and outlier when it comes to boosting. Is she just that much more familiar with it (presumably having grown up as a booster) or can she actually go that much higher than other people in speed and strength that she is basically living in a cardboard world?
Well she can move so fast that her image blurs, and she punched out an armored bipedial Korish tank, so I’d guess that her boosting is part of her innate abilities, and she doesn’t really think about how to do it, she just doesit. That’s my opinion, anyway. π
I assume that name is the “heard too much,” though – an explicit name to tie to the families…
Dude, she’s practically dictating half of your plans for this conversation, and totally directed the “fight”, while complaining about how it was going. (And also telling the guy currently stalemating Rovak she’s just up and leaving, without bothering to so much as turn her head in that direction.)
This is not time to try taking a turn directing. Take the criticism, the loss, and don’t give her reason to feed you that arm.
Her saying she’s leaving might sound bad, but it’s pretty clear that she’s leaving with the guy they were trying to save, after having dismembered half of her oposition. Whether that’s a sane move depends on how many sane war mages they are dealing with and possibly on whether Muim has anything he can contribute to that effect while he’s getting Rovak to destroy the facility for them. It’s probably too much to hope that Ila’s handy somewhere, since there was no showing getting her into position. Of course, her in position could be up to four miles away, so maybe Naomi is just getting her and Tyler out of Ila’s firing line.
As far as not turning to look at Muim when she’s talking… 1, each panel only gets one view to give, and she’s talking for more than enough time to glance and look back to where she’s looking for the frame. 2. She can’t look at all of Muim since he’s not all there, and he doesn’t really understand that social nicety himself anyway, so why bother?
Are Marc and Acalia siblings? Same skin color, same hair color. Now, with the hair its obviously designer set up, so that’s not a huge indicator, but a familial relationship might explain quite a bit about the interactions thus far.
Couple of times Marc has been referenced as a mutt, or of impure blood lines. Acalia clearly doesn’t suffer from that. They are half siblings at best.
-G-
I have a theory here, due to the fact that all confirmed members of the Families we have seen are the same as designer children with match eyes and hair, but we have seen a handful of people with clearly unnatural colors but not matching (Amy, Mione, Marc, Emmi). This people could be the result of unnatural genes mixing in the natural gene pool, as in the kid of two designers kids (or Families, who are implied to have been genetic engineered from the get go) that had different hair colors, the resulting kid would have a mixed “unnatural” colors.
Originally I had thought that designer kids had not been a thing long enough for this to be a reasonable answer, but the more we learn about the Families and that they were probably genetically engineered decades ago, the more likely this seems, and would also explain why someone that was not properly engineered would be defacto excluded unless they proved to have a good innate ability, at which point they could be added back to the carefully curated lines (as Tyler’s friend implies that powerful offshoot members like Marc can get added back to the Families).
Interesting this logic means that the Families might actually be okay with Tyler being added to the number, because it is pretty clear that his innate power is over the top. What I am am curious about is how this plays into non-Families designer children like Naomi. This seems comparatively recent, but I do not know that we have definite proof on that.
You’re making a lot of sense to me. Magic ability would trump all else, as it seemed to me that the consul was making a play to get Tyler added to the official family list. Tyler is a light skinned foreigner.
Do we know actually that Naomi isn’t from one of the families even if one of the less powerful families?
I don’t recall her family background being gone into much so far.
Good question. I’m not sure.
The school they go to doesn’t seem the exclusive, high end sort of school where royalty would be found, not even minor royalty. Instead it seems the school tries to recruit non-malsan wizardlings.
The character page says of Naomi, “Once a self-proclaimed Hero Without a Cause”. Maybe a wayward minor nobility youth, but doesn’t strike me that way.
I get the impression that Malsan royalty is a small tight knit group. They all seem to know one another, or at least know OF one another. Acalia didn’t call Naomi by name. I’m not sure how relevant that is. Acalia didn’t seem to expect raw dismembering strength, which would seem more telling. Boosting is sort of common-ish, though maybe not to Naomi’s level. Teleporting appears rare enough that the war mage is willing to kill to keep it a secret. Then again how sane is the “sane” war mage? Maybe he just likes killing?
There might be something that I’m missing, but I’d lean towards “not nobility”.
“Naomi only has two states. Smiling and Punching. And she wasn’t smiling.”
That seems so appropriate for this page.
Naomi is in very serious this ends now mode. And I said something about the minimum skill level to be in this fight being raised last time. Looks like I underestimated how much it had been raised. So… is Mr. Sane WARMAGE up for this? (The INSANE Warmage definitely is, but is tied up with some more obstinate.)
Which given that Rovak was an extra assignment brings up other implications; Is there another ‘Peter’ working a different angle? And is Acalia and the warmage brothers his/her punching team?
Dunno about the “sane” war mage. But there are 4 booms and a crash in the background. Rovak may have had a change of heart by now as well. He’s crazy, not stupid.
Well, now we both * have * someone bleeding to death. (as opposed to both having someone)
Fixed, thanks π
Holy shit. This sort of recategorized Naomi for me. I mean, yeah, she always seemed to have fun fighting things, but there’s a line between thinking it’s fun, and ripping someone’s arm off, then noting that the number of people bleeding to death have been equalized. And this is from the person that is supposed to Peter’s morality check.
I guess I viewed her as more superhero morality, as in no killing or dismemberment.
It’s all fun and games… until someone gets their arm ripped off.
Why should this make us question her moral character? Granted, it is shocking. I also viewed Naomi as someone who would try to avoid killing and dismemberment. But wouldn’t you draw the line somewhere? What if this was the only way to save the lives of others?
Naomi and Mium came here to complete an objective, doubtless as part of Peter’s plans. This seems to include protecting Tyler, which she would probably do anyway, being someone important to Malsa and her school. She even says, right before this, that Tyler is “sort of dying” and recognizes that she can’t afford to play around anymore.
Never mind that Acalia is the assassin that was sent to kill Miko or that she seems to be betraying Malsa. (If Naomi knew, she’d probably kill her on the spot.) As much as Naomi loves a good fight, she must know that this is a life-and-death struggle and her enemies have death and dismemberment on their agenda.
As blondie says, this is war. And this IDS base is her nation’s target. My interpretation of Naomi is that her primary motivation is to “save the world” – her world, Pandora. It’s the reason why she teamed up with Peter.
Further, I saw Naomi’s comment about them both having someone bleeding to death as her trying to avoid death or further bloodshed (on both sides). She pointed this out to encourage them to take their wounded and leave rather than continue the fight. That sounds rather compassionate to me, not to mention rather clever.
Finally, this world has both really advanced technology and real magic. And Acalia is not dead, yet. Whose to say that they can’t save her life or even regenerate her arm?
It isn’t obvious from the comic, but rather from Past’s commentary. Naomi doesn’t appear to have intended to tear that arm off. And Naomi considers it to be more a failure to use the boost engine properly than anything else.
In other words from Naomi’s perspective, the injured party caused their own harm.
Ah! I missed that. This makes more sense.
But now I’m wondering how dangerous Naomi can be if she gets mad, as she warns about here. Usually, she’s in a good mood.
It’s the Star Wars/Jedi School of Combat. Someone always loses an appendage…
Besides, I’ve always found Naomi charming–and disarming. π
Yes also it seems like Acalia doesn’t excel at in un-armed combat. They should take the part with her to the hospital, maybe it can be attached again.
@pastutopia look at the bright side, she has one fewer shoulders now.
I think Past’s comment referenced his open shoulders.
Can I just take a moment to say I really like Naomi? Cause she’s great.
This isn’t something we *can* just let go? In frame 13 (next to last)
Indeed, fixed, thanks!
She’s leaving. War mage can whine if he wants, but she’s leaving.