page 1362 – Four Distinct Strategic Methods
…aaaaaaaaand GUESS WHAT? IT’S ROUGH DRAFT POSTING TIME AGAIN! Yeah, sorry, but it’s almost 5am, this is as good as the art looks so far, and I’ve already made some REALLY stupid and time consuming technical errors. So, before anything has a chance to go even more haywire, I’m just gonna post what I’ve got for now. Come back later for the finished version and some more meaningful commentary.
EDIT: Well, it’s a good thing I went head and posted the rough draft, huh? That took waaaaaaay longer than such a simple page ever should have! Sorry about that, I got started on this page much, MUCH later than I should have, and all the missed sleep from a very hectic weekend hit me ALL at once. But still, I really do like little pages like this, with how so much about the personalities of every character are communicated despite there being no dialog whatsoever. Despite what the delay might imply, this is exactly the kind of page I like working on.
Oh, by the way, if you wanna see that rough draft that went up earlier, here ya go!
4/25 EDIT: Well crap. Okay, here’s the deal. I’m in the process of finishing up a project that needs to get done for somebody else, but by the time it’s finish, I am NOT going to have juice left to get a new TWC Voting Incentive done. And since I also want to get a head start on page 1363 over the weekend (to avoid a repeat of THIS week’s kerfuffle), trying to squeeze it in later wouldn’t really be a good idea either. So, as much as I hate to do it, I’m just calling off the Voting Incentive for this week. Sorry! Things should be a LOT less bogged down by this time next week!
Hiro is now forever forbidden from attempting Hurdles. And High Jump. And Pole Volt. Actually, anything sports-related where there’s the possibility that he’ll run into something.
Seeing this page, I’m actually thankful that Hiro doesn’t have shoelaces! Who knows how much self-harm he’d do if he was wearing shoes with those! He seems the type who is “clumsy” enough around string that space-time accommodates and stretches ten centimeters of shoelaces outside of the shoe WHEN FULLY TIGHTENED into a full-body bondage situation.
I’ve had the idea that Hiro is actually a lot more coordinated than this when nobody’s around to see, but whenever there’s an audience he gets super self-conscious about not messing up… which causes him to mess everything up.
He actually must be very athletic, as he managed to unwrap the tape from every appendage it was wrapped multiple times around without breaking or even significantly stretching it (I’m assuming this reads from top to bottom chronologically)
While I can see that, I feel like the gag of this page discredits it. He’s been through a LOT with his three friends, and worrying about messing up around them should be significantly reduced, to the point where he wouldn’t have tied himself up so badly.
Instead, I would suggest that he’s always clumsy, but in a comedic-relief sort of way. As in, Hiro tried to go over the tape, tripped on literal air, spun around a dozen times loony-toons style and ended up in the position in panel 2. Then he spun around a dozen more times and was thrown onto the side of the “rope” he was intending to get to, landing on one foot and hopping to stay upright for a second before coming to a complete stop and collapsing backwards because he was still trying to fight his forward momentum. He never harms himself, and he always succeeds in his task, but never in a manner he finds satisfying.
Also, every now and again, his “success” comes in such a confusing manner that he backtracks and undoes it before having to do it again. With this rope example, if Hiro was alone, he would have gotten confused from the spinning and assumed he ended up on the incorrect side of the rope, and tried to cross it again (messing it up in a different manner), only to realise afterwards that he didn’t see the pod he was trying to get to. This is also part of the reason why he isn’t allowed to direct anyone anywhere, his sense of direction is horrible, even if he does end up wherever he intends to go on time (usually through a ceiling or the floor).
In essence, “athletic” and “coordinated” are not necessarily the same thing. He can be one without being the other.
He is physically fit & strong, with horrific spatial awareness and shockingly bad proprioception. No, those last two aren’t the same thing. Spatial awareness is the understanding of where other things are, while proprioception is the understanding of what your own body is doing. Another way to look at it is that spatial awareness is the understanding of the location of things external to you, while proprioception is the understanding of your own body’s position.
In regards to Sports, Spatial Awareness helps you predict how the ball will travel for attempting to catch it, while proprioception ensures you run, jump and reach in a manner that makes it possible to catch.