page 1379 – Why WOULDN’T A Band-Aid Use Spaceship Parts?
What’s this? Another one-panel wonder? Yeah, though this time it worked out the opposite of the past few weeks. Instead of breaking up a single comic into multiple separate pages, this is more a case of a comic that could and probably SHOULD have been broken up into multiple panels, but I just didn’t. It probably would have been less cluttered if Avi’s rant had a whole panel to itself, so that I could have the speech bubble off to the side of the frame instead of covering up the growing pile of stuff. HOWEVER, two panels would have meant twice as much time drawing and editing, and that was a very unwise idea. I’m not gonna lie, guys, I’m TIRED right now. It took a few days, but the post-Otakon exhaustion finally caught up with me late last week, and I still haven’t shaken it off yet. Like, I’m in “Wait, what day is it right now?” levels of brain fog right now, and didn’t even get started on this page until waaaaay too late. there was a very real chance that, if I tried to do a full, multi-panel comic, I would have wound up crashing part-way through and just had nothing at all to post this morning. Don’t worry, I’m gonna rest up over the next few days and hopefully be closer to full working order soon.
And I’d better be, because there’s a whole new TWC Voting Incentive series that’s supposed to start up this week! It’s one I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, and I think it’s something you’ll all be pretty excited about!
EDIT: Okay! A brand new TWC Voting Incentive series has just started up! Go see what I’m so excited about!
The mysterious glowing capsule was a Space Hallucinogens (Psychedelics), though they were designed as a suppository in order to give a high that lasts DAYS. It was also, surprisingly, one of the few substances that, with the singular exception of the hallucinogenic properties it was designed for, actually made with enough oversight that Tarkus would have had a rant complaining about why the all-day party-drug had less harmful chemical mixes in it than the last seven literal medicines he’s been perscribed.
I mean, Avi still shouldn’t have put it up his nose, as it was a suppository, and unless Avi did the likely thing for Avi to do and accidentally swallowed it (shoved it so far up his nose that it went down his throat, no I don’t know how a pretty boy with a tiny nose gets a suppository through the nose and into their throat without destroying it, but Avi managed anyway), it wouldn’t have had any effect.
And if it WAS swallowed, it was designed to still release the drugs, just giving a fraction of the high as the active chemical is mostly neutralised by stomach acid, with no negative side effects. And since this is Avi, despite about 10% of the intended effect normally going through in that instance, instead only about 1% went through, simply because he ate something that would have either amplified the stomach-acid neutralisation effect, or made his stomach acid slightly more acidic purely on that day.
It would be difficult to tell if Avi was on a Space Hallucinogen or not, considering his normal massive delusional state without any drug influence. I guess maybe his delusions would become slightly less internally consistent. Or maybe they’d become more so.
A person’s response to the Hallucinogen varies depending on the Hallucinogen, and sometimes the person involved.
For some reason I feel like Hiro would react to many Hallucinogen’s by being very quiet and immobile, with the specifics of why they’re quiet and immobile varying depending on the Hallucinogen. Some put him to sleep, others he curls up into a ball of trembling terror, and a few just make him so despondent that he just refuses to move entirely.
Tarkus has a panic attack regardless of which Hallucinogen they took, while Lynne has the expected “standard reaction” to the drug.
Getting back onto Avi, for some reason I feel like he has a weakened response to any mind-altering substances he takes, regardless of what it is he takes. Likely a genetic mod his family incorporated into their entire bloodline a WHILE ago to allow them to encourage full cognitive capacity at Events, even when someone drugs the alcohol. I suspect it’s entirely the fact that his entire family has blue skin, which suggests that they’ve undergone a Genetic Modification at SOME point in their history. If my idea is picked up, it’s entirely possible that he needs a Stoner’s-Load worth of Space Hallucinogen’s to even notice it.
@ Incentive: We get to see how the Zombie Kids would talk! And they can both write for themselves! It makes me question why Tabitha doesn’t have them carry around a small book and pen (while carrying around an extra dozen of each herself for when Bridget inevitably destroys, tosses, “loses” or otherwise “forgets” hers, or Alphonse fills his up) so that they can directly communicate even when they can’t talk.
There’s no need to, she can understand them perfectly! (She might have had one for them to communicate with others, but also keeps forgetting others can’t understand their ‘speech’ like she can) And then she signs them up for a Christmas Chorus, apparently.
The Christmas Chorus was likely because Alphonse wanted to, they looked adorable, and if Alphonse was being included, so was Bridget.
Honestly, I can see a situation where Tabitha manages to make their vocal cords work, but they both decide not to speak because they don’t like their new voices. Alphonse’s would be deep and dominating, to the point where politely asking for assistance picking a book from the high shelf sounds threatening. And Bridget’s would be overly adorable, to the point where she could swear for five minutes straight and people would still consider it sweet.
That said, as both of them would HATE those voices, I can see Tabitha seeing that as a failure, and working to fix it. Honestly, that type of joke probably shouldn’t be used, simply because it’s only really good for a singular gag before having both characters refuse to speak for any reason. Giving them “normal” voices would likely be better, or allowing Alphonse’s voice to be adorable while Bridget’s becomes “cool”.
Hopefully the parts are modular and they can just swap. Really, I’m sure Tabitha would know what kind of voice they would like ahead of time, so I’m sure she just accidentally put the wrong module in the wrong kid – mad scientists are brilliant, but scatterbrained.
Tabitha wants to give the kids the ability to speak, but SOMETHING between their brains and their vocal chords didn’t go right during the zombification process, and she hasn’t quite nailed down what it is. I think that she’s probably not working on the issue as hard as she should, though, since she’s so good at telling what they’re thinking anyway that she forgets anything’s amis.
she’s already halfway there – they didn’t even used to have mouths! 😉
Oh, they were made in her father’s design, as he STILL doesn’t have a mouth outside of some VERY specific circumstances. I checked, in his last 20 appearances, we’ve seen him with a mouth ONCE, with him screaming “It’s ALIVE!” as he animated a Christmas Tree.