Bk1: Ch11: Pg15
A: Are you alright?
1b.
C: Yes, yes. I am alright.
C: Just...nightmares.
A: Of course. Totally understandable considering...
2a.
C: Where am I?
A: You are in USRF Safehouse 105 just outside of Punxsuktawney, Pennsylvania.
C: Oh. OK. Could I um...have a moment...to collect myself?
A: Of course.
2b.
A: We'll be just outside if you need us.
3a.
C: OZ, are you online?
O: Yes I am.
C: Excellent. Voice authorization Lieutenant Commander Charlotte Sheridan.
O: Voice recognition confirmed. Welcome, Lieutenant Commander. How may I be of assistance?
3b.
C: First, I need a weapon. Is there one in this room?
O: Yes. There is a handgun in the safe in the closet.
C: Perfect. Open the safe, please.
4a.
C: Now, tell me...who are those women?
O: One is Arayanna Theydrihn, honorary USRF Commander, active duty.
O: The other is her companion, Maeye Festiva. I have no official record of her before our meeting xx days ago.
4b.
C: OZ, are you sure that is H.C. Theydrihn?
O: Yes, I verified her voice authorization when she arrived.
C: Uh huh.
C: OZ, please check the active duty roster at Scott Airfoce Base for Arayanna Theydrihn.
O: Checking. Yes. I see her checked in ...
O: Today. How is that possible?
4c.
C: That is what I intend to find out.
5a.
A: How are you fee...?
5b.
A: Oh. Not well, I take it.
6a.
C: Hands up, both of you.
A: Is there some kind of misunderstanding?
M: Yea, we did just save your ass.
C: Misunderstanding? No. But I am curious if you could explain how it is possible that you can be in
two places at the same time.
6b.
A: I am not sure I understand.
C: Don't bullshit me, lady! What are you? Some kind of shapeshifter.
7a.
M: Bitch, you have two seconds to get that gun out of my girl's face...
A: Maeye, it's ok. She has every right to be suspicious.
7b.
A: I will gladly tell you everything, but this is going to take a while. Perhaps we could sit?
C: I'm fine where I am.
A: Really? Being healed from the brink of death by Maeye's magic is exhausting. I know. I've been there a
few times.
8a.
C: Healing? Magic?
M: Yes, you ungrateful skank. I am the only reason you are alive and you thank us by coming out here waving
a gun!
8b.
C: The demon. It had me. It...it was killing me...it was ripping me apart...
8c.
A: It's ok. You are safe now.
C: I still don't trust you...
M: Right back atcha, sister.
C: ...But I'll hear you out.
A: That is all that I ask.
There’s something refreshing when the magical medic, rather than being this adorable all-loving wholesome fluffybunny, is instead a take-no-shit, trash-talking firecracker.
Now for all the portal-hopping technically-an-isekai (it just means “other world” in Japanese) magibabble =P
LOL! I love that description of Maeye. 🙂
I see. Arayanna has been time-traveling.
Yea. Time, space…she get’s around. 🙂
“it’s about time, it’s about space…”
Thanks, now I’ve got THAT stuck in my head.
I thought Oz was the digital soul of that house only. So all safe houses are connected to one main computer?
I wonder why Oz hasn’t noticed *on its own* there seem to be two Ariannas.
Arianna surely has some story to tell now and I guess even Maeye doesn’t know everything yet.
OZ is an operating system that exists in each of the military facilities. It is not everywhere, but mostwheres.
I thought about making OZ recognize the two parallel Aray’s on its own, but that would have made my life difficult. 😀 So maybe a bit of lazy writing there. Let’s just assume that the system is not programmed for that level of independent thinking but can recognize things when directed to look for them.
That makes sense: OZ is not a full AI that can make decisions on its own (we have seen it has some sort of limited self-awareness, when it burnt Maeye about being horny all the time 🙂 ) but an Operating System that can only perform commands on order
Silly girl, you don’t present the weapon until the questioning doesn’t go your way.
The easiest way to be disarmed is to let them know you’re armed.
No, you don’t stick the weapon in their face unless you are sure they can’t take it and make you eat it
I think that’s probably what she was trying to avoid. Trying to get the upper hand and all that.
Which is exactly what I said.
Good point!
Love it, except the chat bubble over the gun in the last bit.
You mean cause you can’t see the gun?
There’s a bit in Grrl Power where Max, who can shoot a beam like a particle accelerator and slice a tank in half, just looks like she’s pointing if she aims at you, but if she brandishes a tactical shotgun, everyone recognizes a serious threat (and freaks out), at 0.0000000000023 % the firepower.
I get that covering the art in the middle with the bubbles feels more confrontational, but losing the gun visual, I’m not a fan of. Certainly a fan in general, clean, arty stuff, and good central characters.
You can still see that Charlie lowered the gun so it is now pointing at Aray’s gut instead of her face
You can tell where it is by Charlie’s arm position and the grip of the gun (which is parallel to Maeye’s white shorts)
Found it: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-327-ask-a-self-evident-question/
Why do they always refuse to sit down? That’s just stupid.
Because sitting puts you in a vulnerable position (ever tried to fight while sitting?)
Having done so a bunch, it doesn’t make you nearly as vulnerable as people think. It took pretty minimal training for every time I was jumped from behind sitting to end with the bully stabbed before the teacher had any idea what was happening.
However, people thinking it does is plenty to justify them avoiding it :J
Ever tried to hold a gun on someone while standing up when you’re exhausted? Especially through a long exposition. And fighting might be harder, but aiming aand firing gun aren’t. Refusing to sit is stupid.
Getting that close is more stupider
If Aray (or Maeye) meant her harm, they could have had that weapon out of her hand before she blinked
Yea – that is a logical conclusion. We’ll learn a little bit more about her seemingly irrational fears in a page or two.
True. Still could have taken a seat.
That’s the thing: are they irrational? Considering what she went through
Or do you mean with the other H.C. Theydrihn? (still saying that that is Aray’s missing sister)
Yea – guns are heavy. 🙂 Once the adrenaline wears off, she’s gonna be in trouble.
I think she would refuse anything at this point in an attempt to appear in control.
Two Arayanna’s… wonder if this storyline will end with Maeye in a threesome with both of them 😀
That would be awesome! But no…#1 rule of time travel is never run into your other self. I think…
No, the first rule is never run over your other self, particularly the older one 😉
LOL!
No-Prize for the H.C. Theydrihn who checked in at Scott Base is Aray’s sister?
Aray’s sister has short white hair. That would be quite a mix up.
They simply checked the name, not the description
Personally don’t believe it’s a shapeshifter as Aray has been off-world for months if not years
But will wait and see what happens 🙂
Only fault (personally) with the new invotive: the nipples should have been in the ears 😉
A ‘Milky Wet-Willy’ 🙂
LOL!!
Invotive: I hope your wife (or kids) don’t suddenly enter the room when Maeye and Aray are kissing each other. With you in between them. 🙂
Kids are up and out (thank god). The poor wife has to put up with this nonsense all the time. Of course, have of this is all her ideas anyway, so I guess she is just as guilty.
Heya friends. TWC voting resets tomorrow. If you all don’t mind could we pour on the invotive voting a bit? I usually don’t care about our rank but it has been a long time since we’ve been out of the top 100. Thanks!
No worries, many fans and I try and mostly succeed to vote for you everyday. 😀
And it is greatly appreciated! 😀
Trying not to let this TWC thing bother me…but it is. I find it very difficult to believe that the top couple of comics are getting over 1000 votes a day.
It’s important to remember popularity isn’t quality. The top comics tend to have things like “Ongoing for over 20 years now!”, furry elements, and male leads. The first two synergize — furry fans are more likely to stick with things — and the last plays to patriarchy. At the same quality level, poser graphics reduce popularity.
Prentil is at about 10 years(which is great but not old enough to have gotten your foot in a ton of doors back before webcomics exploded), uses Poser graphics of humans and near-humans, and has no schmuck with a dick to lead with. None of these are knocks on quality, but will reduce your TWC score.
Also, you tend to put out meatier pages less often. This strip is 8 rows of panels, and at my browser size, only 3 rows fit on screen. Checking the top 3 comics, they all have much smaller updates, and probably post more frequently — frequency disproportionately affects TWC score. I’m sure you have graphs of the spikes whenever you post.
I dunno if you remember, but way back when, I suggested you post each strip piece-by-piece(like a row a day). I don’t know if you can set an upload queue to replace, but that’d do it. Then you can do the same content, but have it reach the audience more frequently.
You also tend to focus on the invotives, which is tricky. On the one hand, invotives themselves don’t affect TWC votes much/at all. On the other hand, you use invotives to keep the creative juices flowing. Maybe it’d help to have something like EGS NP, a “sub-strip” where you post OOC/downtime/gaiden content that keeps the creative juices flowing? Then, instead of those images becoming invotives which don’t affect TWC, they become content which does 🙂
And again, nothing I’m suggesting affects the content. You’ve been honing your art for a decade and more, and you’re damn good at it. But Prentil is inherently somewhat niche, and there’s some delivery things you could do to improve your score.
There is a lot of good advice in here, and I appreciate your advice and you taking the time to write it up. I have often thought about breaking the pages up into smaller chunks, but I keep getting stuck on wanting to tell a significant piece of the story with each page. I will keep considering this one…
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
I’d say, a page and an update don’t have to be the same. You can still make pages just like this, but set them to upload multiple times. The first update is just the first row of panels, with the rest blacked out. The second update replaces it with the first two rows of panels, again the rest blacked out. This page could roll out over the course of 8 days, and on the last day, what ends up in the archives is the whole page just like this.
Then you’re making the content the exact same way you do now, with a significant piece of the story in each page, and doing the blacking-out afterwards as delivery.
It’s important to remember that TWC lets comics buy votes and a lot of the the standings are largely meaningless. That and if I wanted to and had the time to kill, I could make a hundred different accounts and vote from each one on a dozen different ‘devices’/IP’s and people do just that then sell the votes to as many comics as they can. I used to vote for a hundred odd comics religiously, under a couple of logins both from home and from my phone if I was out, about half of them I could see that I was the only person voting for them but I liked them and wanted to keep them on the front pages, it killed a half hour or so, maybe less, it’s fast when you use your own list and I have no doubt some kid with a phone farm could churn out over a thousand votes in less time than that. TWC admitted that some comics were buying tens of thousands of votes at a time but they also said they weren’t going to do anything about it. I finally stopped voting entirely, except for the odd vote incentive I wanted to see.
Some of the ‘top’ comics have comment sections with hundreds of comments per day, others haven’t even updated in years yet still stay on the front page, some have been discontinued entirely yet still get hundreds of votes…be happy for the loyal fans you have instead of paying some north korean botfarm to generate pretend pageviews and inflated ad revenue.
Thank you, guys. You guys are the best – no doubt about that. 😀
They are not, not real votes anyway
Grrl Power is currently in 15th place, and they are normally in the top 3 at least
Oh, and “Merceneiress” even opted out of TWC entirely for awhile, and started working on a second site (“Merceneiress Two”) to post extras, like uncensored panels and AI-inspired art of his characters