Comic for Tuesday, June 4th, 2019
Next comic will be Friday, not sure if it will be up early on patreon or not currently.
Sophie, well, I don’t really think anyone thought she was quite normal by now. In some sense, she is like Arron in that she was too important to get rid of, but too dangerous to keep close. Of course, in other ways, very much not like Arron. Sophie is in many ways seen as hazardous even by the people in Central, but having someone seen as vaguely hazardous is, in part, a qualification to run Situation Containment. While in this case it has largely backfired, it all really comes down to the nature of the crisis. If a world is attacked by Kor’s World, you would probably want Sophie there, but if the problems are under a certain threshold, you probably don’t. That threshold probably lowers the further from the people that make the decisions in central gets though.
In many ways, they view Kally the same way, and it’s up for some debate if they’d be entirely wrong. One might even think having dubiously adjusted people wielding enormous personal power has drawbacks. In both cases, Kally and Sophie are nominally loyal to the IDS, but that only really makes sense as a concept when the IDS has an existential external threat, as otherwise the IDS otherwise completely contradictory actions can both be done “in service to the IDS” leading things like this.
The redish brown haired monster hunter is someone we have seen before. He’s the one that stopped the null caster from trying to arrest Kally before. His name is Kurun.
Loading ...
And she just straight up admits that she wants to die. Kill Sophia and Bianna, do the multiverse a favor!
“Letting Atter continue would be an eleven. Do we have a third option, Kurun?”
leaving Kors world to do whatever the heck they want would be a thirteen? with mium using preemptive threat elimination a twelve, i think. maybe.
-Meoi Lass
Since this was first on Patreon, I noted the rubble in panel 1 (panel 11 on Patreon), and wondered what was up with that. But I wasn’t sure how to even ask about it. I hoped someone else would bring it up. But they haven’t…
What is up with that rubble?
Did Fluffy just casually demolish a large portion of a building? Were there people in it? Was it just a parking garage, or some abandoned building? Who owned it? If it was Peter who owned it, had he bought it specifically because he realized that there was a sufficiently high chance that Kally would end up destroying it in this fashion, and he felt it would help reduce the amount of conflict in her life for her to not have to deal with the consequences of that? If it was Kally, had she bought it herself, or did Mium buy it for her using her money? If it was someone else, will they have any legal recourse, considering that it was demolished by a dragon, and there’s presumably little precedent on the books for this situation?
Was there even really a building there for realsies? If Kally can materialize a dragon, maybe she materialized a building for Fluffy to dramatically crash through. Alternatively, since there is a war going on, it’s possible it was a pile of rubble, and Fluffy just did some rubble redistribution. Alternatively, this is presumably somewhere Sophie has spent a moderate amount of time. Maybe it was a faux building that she materialized?
I think I’ll start off the guessing by suggesting that maybe it was a building that Sophie owned, specifically for the purposes of performing her demonic rites or whatever, and that there were no living people in it.
This is probably the same place that wrecked by Elizabeth and Camilla’s fight. That was awhile ago, but I doubt they fixed all the damage yet. So it was probably rubble that got further destroyed, but there was probably not anyone in it. That would be my uneducated guess anyway.
Looks it’s probably an outer wall for the complex. Which Kally had no need to demolish, it’s true.
I bet it made her feel a little better and was a show of force. Here i crushed this wall like I’ll crush you.
I perceive that as Fluffy tearing through the wall opposite of the hole where Biana conjured some stairs.
I’m not sure what building they are in, but given there was fear of multiple tactical class mages fighting there, I think it is safe to assume anyone remaining is a participant or suicidal.
By the way, is it established that magic -> dramatic hair? Sophie’s hair starting to go weird, and Kally’s certainly got Big Hair compared to last time she was just hanging out not doing magic stuff.
I’m not sure that magic == enhanced hair is canon. I think awesome == enhanced hair might be. Also awesome enhances scarves.
Take a look at some early Mium.
It might be artistic license, but isn’t that kind of the same thing?
I mean, if we remember Tyler’s coat/MSB Cloak (and Arron’s coat to a lesser extent), I think the rule is basically if it looks like it could flap in the wind, it flaps in the wind when magic is happening. A fair number of the characters just happen to have long hair that conveniently can fluff in the wind of being awesome, characters that don’t need either long coats or scarfs.
Until this comic I had not really considered “scarfs” to be in the category of things like “cool” things dusters/cloaks, but here we are.
Scarves weren’t in the category of things that can make one look badass? You maybe should watch more 4th Doctor. I mean, in *most* of Tom Baker as the Doctor, the scarf just makes him look silly or odd, but there’s a few episodes…
That said, if you’ve ever worn a really long scarf, you’d realize the sheer logistics of managing a scarf that long make him a badass for being able to pull it off for just a season, let alone as the longest running Doctor Who so far.
Pretty sure the author has said that it is probably just artistic licence, but that people can perceive magic in a way that’s hard to draw which is why he uses wind + glow dots. So we (not being mages) are not seeing exactly what they are seeing, but they are presumably seeing something that makes the character look badass too (I think).
It is basically canon though, given it happens to everyone, particularly all long haired characters. Naomi’s hair is like twice as long when she is going full mad-girl.
Kurun, welcome to extreme inter-departmental warfare. You may end up doing well. Or you may end up throw under the bus by someone extremely cut throat. Either way you have an eventful future for the next couple of weeks. Because you definitely appear to be officer material.
Fluffy doesn’t even look like a construct anymore. Now it could be that Past is getting better with dragons, but I think it’s intentional.
I wonder if Fluffy is becoming permanent entity.
Panel three suggests that this has happened before. Possibly when Kally was very upset?
It suggests something of the sort has happened before. It may not have involved Kally.
You’re right. However I think a large percentage of Central’s casters capable of materializing a construct are present. And whatever happened last time, seems to inspire some urgency on the part of the monster hunters.
Still, its reassuring that at least the Situation Containment team has seen this before, and lived though it…
There’s a possibility that black line constructs are what triggered the attack from Kor’s World. Instead of freaking out that he’s within biting distance of a dragon, the soldier could be freaking out that fluffy is ‘materialized’.
@Past. otherwise in the author note otherwise might be totally redundant in the second case.
It’s a bit deeper than that: everything before the second “otherwise” should probably go. (Sounds like a partial-edit – write one thing, realize you want to phrase it differently, write the second thing, forget to delete the first thing.)
Also, a “to” is missing later in that sentence, if he’s editing it anyway.
“some real fun”
Is she related to Naomi?
I would like to state, that in all likelihood, on a 1 to 10 scale of bad ideas, this is more reasonably, probably more like an 11…. maybe a 12.
Crap. *He’s* Kurun? My notes had the guy who looked sort of like the null caster but wore the normal monster hunter armor.
At least I also have a file listing of all of the armored monster hunters’ appearances, so it should be a quick fix.
“Its fire” has an extra ‘
“If you fight, the I.D.S. loses.”
Maybe it should, for once. Certainly not against certain enemies, like Kor’s World. But sometimes… sometimes the I.D.S. should lose.
To be fair, the local area also loses, and I’m not sure where the building is. There might be something in the vicinity it’s desirable to not break.
Interesting that whatever is going on with the dragon is a known state of (red constructs?).
Heh heh, the local area loses. You have a talent for understatement.
Known state of red constructs? Materialized, yes. Doesn’t sound like a common state though. I suspect we’re getting very close to someone expositing a relationship between materialized constructs and either demons and/or SMAI.
Maybe that’s just me hoping.
I think the term you are looking for is “Godzilla threshold”. Coined by when things have gone so bad unleashing godzilla is literally the better option.
The problem is that both Kally and Sophie are sort of godzilla in this case, and releasing neither of them would have been preferable.
No, no, no. There was never a Godzilla vs. Godzilla movie. (Godzilla verses Mechagodzilla doesn’t count, no matter how many times they did it.) That’s just not right.
Fluffy is basically Rodan.
Um, question, in whatever movie Godzilla fought Rodan, did any part of Tokyo survive?
… Atter really didn’t spend a lot of time in any form that looked like Godzilla. Daimajin?
Did Rodan and Daimajin ever fight?
Today I learned there were far more of these sorts of movies than I had ever believed possible.
Correction: Fluffy is basically a kinder, gentler, smaller Fire Rodan, from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2. I would guess that Fluffy did not destroy half of Tokyo, but I suspect it wouldn’t be beyond them if they really wanted.
I apologize for my shoddy research last night. I should point out I have not come anywhere close to completing this research.
Dramatic entrance! With lightning and glowy eyes! 10/10!
….and it’s official. Sophie just lost the last of her marbles.
Be honest… If you were an insanely powerful mage, the question of whether you could take it would at least pass through your head.
It does for any fighter, with any threat.
The *important* bit, is whether the fighter actually throws a punch.
It depends. Are you more like Raistlin or Rincewind? The Raistlin types, sure. The Rincewind types, on the other hand, tend to just run scared for some reason. It’s like they’ve seen a good deal more of it than those who have “seen it all.”
Obviously, most of the mages here are more like Raistlin. The only possible candidate we’ve seen for being more of a Rincewind type hasn’t actually admitted to having any magic… but that’s typical of those who take after Mr. Fancy Hat Wizzard Who Took Two Whole Books To Cast One Spell.
Fluffy killed Atter;
Fluffy could kill Twelve Atters;
those Twelve Atters could combine into one Super Atter and Fluffy could kill that….
Much of Fluffy killing Atter had to do about Atter’s “I’m immortal” attitude.
One dragon is clearly more than enough to take out a dozen normal people, but Atters aren’t normal people. If Atter had not prioritized declaring his homicidal inclinations as his first act on animating a corpse, but had instead prioritized staying very still and using it as a temporary breathing nook on his path to escape, he’d have been able to get to a safe distance and start sending his abominations out.
If he had been less of a cocky “I’m immortal” bastard, he wouldn’t have even lost his living host, would have been better able to stay at a range that Fluffy would have a difficult time hitting him.
Either of these scenarios would have presented a foe more than 12 times as difficult to handle.
Any demon Sophie summons at this point would almost certainly be much more wary of Fluffy, even without Sophie’s interest in blocking Fluffy’s known attacks. They’d also be much more targetted towards dealing with Fluffy and Kally in particular. Atter was more of a general use demon who grew too confident.
….to be fair, the actual question that would pass through my head would be: “If I wrapped my strongest defense around a target dummy in a weapons testing area, would my defenses hold?” You’ll notice that I’m not in danger, nor is anyone else.
Plus, I get queasy at the sight of blood. And I nearly vomited when someone showed me a picture of their incision from their hip replacement surgery. So I’d have no desire to attack the dragon. …unless hugging in an attack. Or nerd-gasms? Because I can definitely see myself squealing in joy and trying to hug Fluffy.
At least, that’s what you think, until you watch with a growing terror as the energy bolt jumps from the destroyed target dummy to the guy who made the target dummy, and then to his supervisor, and his manager, and so forth up the chain, until it takes out the CEO of the vendor your subordinate purchased the target dummy from, and then on to your subordinate…
Of course, if you’re sane, you wake up before the bolt jumps to you. Or if you’re me, you see it take out you, and your boss, and ….
Been there, done that, have the t-shirt?