Far Out There

The dialog on this page really bugs me, ‘cos there’s an obvious nit that I deliberately left in. Disonar insists there’s no danger in letting Astrid tag along while he has this token meeting with the gun smugglers. He bases this ENTIRELY on the fact that nothing she’d see would implicate him in stealing and re-selling the guns himself afterwards. This is true, but it’s also not the problem. As Layla pointed out, the actual DANGER here has nothing to do with the COPS catching up with him, it’s those gun smugglers. Layla’s involvement has been to set up plans that would distance Disonar from the looming police raid and prevent violent reprisals… plans that DON’T cover some buxom blonde tagging along behind him. Adding any additional elements to the mix, particularly one who’s gone out of her way to be as memorably conspicuous as possible, increases the likelihood of a least one of those crooks trying to track her down just to get back at SOMEONE. And if they find Astrid, they could find Disonar, and the whole thing’s gone to smash.

That’s not what bugs me, though. Really, any plan Layla would cook up to distract from Disonar’s involvement is going to be more than enough to make everyone forget who was standing next to him for a few minutes. And there’s no reason to believe Astrid would go to the smugglers herself since, again, she’d be in as much danger as Disonar. No, what bugs me is I COULDN’T THINK OF A WAY TO SAY ALL THIS IN THE COMIC! I tried and tried to squeeze this little Nit Prevention into the conversation one way or another, but it never seemed natural. Disonar’s already doing a better job of explaining himself than he really should, so one MORE bit of logic from him would be one too many. And Layla… well, that last panel says it all. At this point, she’s just too exasperated with Disonar to waste energy trying to talk some sense into him. Plus, there’s been WAAAAY too much talking on Layla’s side of the plot. We need to hurry up and get to things HAPPENING!

(Historical Notes: For all of Past Me’s complaining about the writing here, I still really love that final exchange between Layla and Disonar.)