page 1257 – totally not playing dress up
*sigh* Well, this page was supposed to be up a LOT sooner than it was. Sorry, but by the time the page was finished, the house internet was down (AGAIN) and I couldn’t get it posted to the site. The ironic thing is, I still had a phone that COULD get online, but technical disagreements between it and the computer meant that, despite the two devices sitting inches from each other, I couldn’t move the image file from one to the other. I know the page isn’t up THAT late or anything, but the internet around here has been so crap lately that this is NOT the first time in recent memory this has happened, so I kinda needed to vent for a sec. Apologies.
Anyway, I really flip flopped on whether or not I should actually color in Trigger’s suit here, since that’s usually what I do when a new outfit is introduced. But it’s also with the understanding that we’ll be seeing said new outfit a lot, so knowing the “real” color would be useful in the future. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to reveal that Trigger’s not going to be rocking a full suit very often without Layla literally putting it on him like this, so I wound up deciding against the extra step. And that’s despite me trying to design a kinda-sorta-Nehru jacket to give it at least a SLIGHT hippy vibe.
Finally, how long has it been since we saw Tiny Trigger and Lil’ Layla? Too long, I say.
EDIT: New TWC Voting Incentive up, and it’s another one where I spent waaaaaay too much time on it entirely for my own amusement. Like, more than usual, I mean.
Well, if he’s putting away his (toys) tools, then he’s likely to want to play with them. If he’s playing with them while putting them away, he gets to do two things at once! And the Nanny Robots aren’t his (toys) tools, so if he incorporates his tools into them he’s also putting his (toys) tools away while playing with them. And if he’s incorporating his (toys) tools into the Nanny Robots, then it would be better for them to be able to use them! And one of the best forms for using many tools is the Spider Form, simply because it has so many limbs! Tiny Trigger is a GENIUS!
…A genius whose expertise is getting things to break, right right riiiight.
Whelp, that failed spectacularly for you Tiny Trigger, and you should have expected for it to do so. Not only were you distracted while you were cleaning, you were also distracted while you were working on technology, and have destructive instincts to boot.
Based on this and what we’ve seen previously: To everyone in the Galaxy, Trigger is a kind, sweet, likable, innocent, cheerful, helpful, and (aside from the occasional practical joke) harmless young boy…unless you are Nannybot. To the Nannybot Community, he is the Thing That Comes For You in the Darkness…he is the story they tell around campfires that leaves them in such terror they can’t sleep…the Monster whose legends they use to scare their Nannybotkids into behaving..a bogeyman spoken of only in whispers lest he appear and doom them all! 😮
(or, in short, Nannybots see Trigger the way the rest of the Galaxy sees Stilez. Who also ironically turns out to be mostly harmless and adorable.)
First of all, Nannybot’s aren’t people, that’s WHY they were used to raise Trigger, they’re non-sentient AI with the set objective of keeping a child they are directed towards to be fed, physically healthy & educated, with each option beyond “fed” being optional extras that cost more and have their own scaling prices.
Second of all, Trigger is a kind, sweet, likable, innocent, cheerful, helpful and (aside from the occasional practical joke) harmless young boy. To anything that isn’t purely, or primarily, mechanical that biological life are reliant upon to survive. To purely, or primarily, mechanical existences, Trigger can be considered something between the Boogyman and the Grim Reaper. If mechanical existences they had communities that shared stories, and Trigger took action that allowed mechanical threats who witnessed him to survive, he would be as threatening to those communities as Stillez, if not more so.
After all, Stillez would only tear them apart potentially leaving their actually sensitive parts alone. Trigger targets those spots specifically, and the gentlest we’ve seen him act out on mechanical existences resulted in the robots going insane, singing & releasing rainbows into the air, probably resulting in what would have been drastically limited remaining operational periods.
I do need to point out that, for as much as Trigger messed with the nannybots specifically, we HAVE seen documented evidence that he used them to play pranks on others. So, technically, he’s not restricting his mischief to mechanical targets. However, by process of elimination, the only “others” who would have been on the receiving end for most of Trigger’s life would have been Layla and her Dad. A tough, intimidating gal and a supremely easygoing guy. Thus, he’s never really had to face the consequences of somebody being distraught and traumatized by anything he did.
And what you said was covered by “aside from the occasional practical joke” in both of our comments.
Trigger was also, despite never really interacting with anyone but Layla & her father while growing up, cognisant of the fact that it’s only funny until you hit the line where the individual targeted is no longer willing to just shrug it off. And able to tell where that line is better than Avatar in, regards to Ichabod at least. So I feel that he showed enough social knowledge and skills to be able to avoid making someone distraught or traumatized by his actions… for far longer than he’s been outside of the bunker.
…I actually wouldn’t be at all surprised if what had Trigger stop pulling pranks is one of three things:
– 1. Trigger coming out of the Bunker traumatised him enough that the thought of pulling pranks was non-existent until he was reminded of them.
– 2. Trigger accidentally actually upset Layla enough that he got a massive lecture and stopped pulling pranks.
– 3. Trigger stopped pulling pranks after discovering about Layla’s father’s death to help emotionally support her for a while, and never really thought about them until he was reminded on the ship.
Completely unrelated to the current comic:
The ad at the bottom of today’s page appears to be someone trying to start up another new “best webcomics list” type site. Ironically, advertised on FOT but FOT isn’t on it. Although there’s only like 10 webcomics listed so far anyway. Are you going to join? Just asking in case I need to remember to vote there daily also. Get in early on the ground floor, or something like that. Not that being a perennial Top-5’er on TWC isn’t impressive enough already! 😉
You know, I really should, shouldn’t I?
EDIT: Went ahead and did it, ‘cos it’s not as if I’m supposed to be doing something ELSE right now or anything…
Now of course it just needs a clickable icon up in the upper right section for voting and stuff
.
…‘cos it’s not as if you’re supposed to be doing something ELSE right now or anything… 😉
At some point, probably, though it doesn’t seem that Best Webcomics allows for voting incentive images… which, to be honest, is the primary reason I actually keep the TWC button up top.
Yeah, I feel like incentive images are 99.9% of the reason why TWC is still around years after so many other “lists” have vanished in smoke like Ichabod’s former traveling companion. If those new guys are going to compete, they’re going to have to come up with a good gimmik like that. Or, of course, just use the tried-and-true method and steal the gimmik the successful predecessor used.
In case anyone wants to vote anyway…
https://bestwebcomics.net/vote?wcid=23
from Best Webcomics: “A new update for webcomic creators: You can add a custom Thank You image for your voting page.”
Looks like they figured out pretty quick that they needed a vote incentives feature 🙂
OOOOoooooh! I didn’t even see that, thanks for the heads up!
Of course, I suppose it’s not much of an incentive to vote per se if one has already voted at TWC and seen it, so of course you’ll need an entirely separate 2nd set of incentives! JK of course, no more overworking! So here’s my thought, just throwing it out there – there’s probably a lot of newer readers who may have seen us referring back to TKSODD in comments but don’t really get the significance of it, and so aren’t motivated to go hunt it down in the incentive archives – you could re-release it on BW for the newer audience! It really is a must-read if you’re going to understand FOT. Reminds me of that rather cynical slogan NBC used to use back in the 90s(?) to promote their summer of reruns “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!”. Of course, knowing you, you’ll feel compelled to re-release it as a “Director’s Cut” with reworked art and additional scenes, so here I am overworking you again 🙂
There’s an even more pressing reason why I probably shouldn’t try to re-post old stuff on a second site; you just KNOW I’d end up losing track of where I was and start posting stuff at the wrong time (or, better yet, post something on the wrong site entirely). I mean, some weeks, it’s hard enough for me to remember to put stuff on TWC at all! This could make my head a-splode!
What you need is a technical staff to handle this sort of thing so you can concentrate on the webcomcing! 😉
(I’d apply for the position, but “Remembering to do stuff on time” is not a strong point on my resume either….:(
Also I suspect the pay scale may not be quite enough to meet my rent…)